Blog Archives

Each step along our individual paths changes us. Some experiences grow body, mind, and soul. Other experiences cause those same parts of us to shrink and ache endlessly. The trick is to let each step teach you even if it pains you. When you dedicate yourself to a task with little hope of recognition or monetary gain, many steps on the path are painful. No matter how much you give or how many you touch, there are still more in need. We live in a harsh world. My hat/cancer bandana off to anyone on the path to healing themselves and/or helping a loved one get relief in the most natural way possible. It takes a lot of courage and resolve to reach the end of the modern medicine road and only be left with options you may be logically against (such as chemo). It’s just as difficult to dutifully stand by and genuinely unconditionally love someone whose body is in decline.

As difficult as those decisions are, being public about them makes those choices even harder, but the stories we tell and leave behind in this time when cannabis legality is in its infancy of revival are a testament to the plant, it healing and transformative powers, and the lives of those left searching for comfort when modern medicine can’t offer it. Each of us who has chosen to tell our tale in the public forum of our day (the internet, or public eye in general) is living history. My endless gratitude to all those out there playing nurse to a loved one so limited in physical ability. Watching the cannabis world work to change from prohibition to test markets for medical use to states defying the federal government to decriminalize for adult use has been a heart twisting journey every step of the road. Please don’t forget the chronically ill folks and their caregivers for each recreational bowl you enjoy or sell legally. We still have a long way to go to honor the people who put their entire lives and health on the line in order to create change. Let’s begin by more and more programs to help the low income patients among us.

After many years of dedication to the cause of cannabis education and healing, This is the greatest need I see in the movement today: Just too many folks with too little resources and too much pain while the price of cannabis remains a burden to their largely ssi/ssd funded existences while pounds of useable cannabis are grown in the name of someone suffering and sold elsewhere by their “caregiver” for a profit. We must do better by the low income legal cannabis patient if we ever hope to legalize cannabis for medicinal or recreational use across the board. But as an individual, I can only offer individual mercy. Lately I’ve been giving free oil to individuals legal in Colorado and to cannabis charities such as Greenfaith Ministries. We need to see more of this kind of mercy.

Feel free to wander around Kiefair.com, wish the site a happy anniversary, comment on and share your favorite articles from years past. Also feel free to comment on this post for any improvements or changes you would like to see to the site. Moving forward, I have a project to preserve samples of products I make and products available in the market for future research. I imagine a time when we are looking back at this period in our shared history as the dawn of cannabis legalization. I imagine scientists wanting to know exactly what we were using. To preserve this history, the best, the good, the bad, and the ugly, I have procured slides and lab vials to make samples to carry on after us.

My next article covers making your own massage oils. As a preview for those eagerly awaiting the write up on that article, Let us have a look at the history of extracting healing compounds or scent compounds from various plants. This history is essential to understanding the next article from kiefair.com

I invite you to come and visit the site through a sampling of the most read articles. Scroll below the photo for the top read articles according to my site’s stats, 2014 reading statistics. Let’s take a look at what people are reading.

This post is not to debate with others about if J.R.R. Tolkien was a stoner or not. This post is for people who have already determined for themselves that he did like to suck on a weed pipe every now and again and who wonder about what is really in Lembas Bread.

Fat Freddy has had a sore on his back for about 3 years and it would not heal! We started putting Rick Simpson Oil on it on November 23, 2011 then the next day we checked it and then checked it every 3 days afterwards, changing the oil and bandage every 3 days as well! I documented the process as long as I was the live in maid/nurse for the patient. (WARNING THIS IS GRAPHIC!)

I do not look like I have a single drop of Mediterranean blood in me, so why do i care about this rare genetic disorder? Because the color of skin is only skin deep. Because despite the pale appearance of my exterior, I have the genetic ancestor from that part of the world who handed me this recessive trait. Because I have this disease and have to live with it…

A set of videos in Tribute to the writing of Hannah Hurnard, “Hind’s Feet on High Places” to Art of Breezy Kiefair i just put music and art to a book that has been a favorite since childhood… my mother used to read me that book…. call it a tribute to her and an introduction of the book to an audience that may otherwise remain unaware of it. I recommend it for anyone with anxiety or PTSD

Ronnie Lee Smith, aka Roland A Duby made much of Kiefair.com possible. In April 2014, he lost his battle with Leukemia after being falsely imprisoned by Yavapai county in Arizona. We got Ronnie out of jail, but only in time for him to die with a pipe in his hands. While Ronnie was alive, he tasked me to keep his oil making method alive. I have done my best to ensure I keep this task entrusted to me by making his method freely available to anyone willing to learn.

*****Note, I have not updated the review page in quite some time. Some of the dispensaries I have reviewed may no longer be in business. The quality at the locations I have reviewed may have changed due to a change in ownership, grower or extraction agreements. Nearly all of my reviews are of MEDICAL locations, so please check to see if they have a retail location before using any of these reviews for a vacation guide.

Here’s to another Great Year!

Grateful Dead Throwing Stones

Do you use Kiefair.com? Do you support me giving out info on cannabis oil creation for free? Do you support my free oil program with the colorado cannabis charity known as Greenfaith Ministry? Well, you may be unaware that one little lady pays for all costs associated with KiefAir.com. The way the site stays afloat with its mini library of cannabis related reference information is through sales of art and books. Each year, I must make $300 in PROFITS from the art at my etsy store and my poetry book sales on amazon.com.

Have a look at some samples from my portfolio, all of these images may be purchased to support kiefair.com

Please remember I only make pennies per art print I sell, so I need to sell a lot of pieces each year. I was very worried about keeping the site open for 2015. The holiday season left me with not one sale. But People pulled together, and We are all set to keep the site open through February 2016!

This is the tale of how I kept the site open this time… previous years, the money had come from my medication budget. This year was different… this happened because a long time patron gifted me $100 to bring the hosting fee bar a little lower, but he was a special case, my first patron ever who seems to still want to pay more for some ceramic figures I did when I was about 14. He always sends me some cash during the winter holidays and on my birthday. In truth this anonymous donor has been more of a father to me than my own. One of the few positive male role models i have had in mu life. The rule is to spend it on something for myself. I misbehaved this year and give the gift to you. This year I’m put it towards continuing to give the gift of information via kiefair.com . Pebbles Trippet, a prominent writer for Skunk Magazine bought a clutch of 4×6 limited edition Maya Angelou memorial prints. Other patrons got posters or 8×10 prints and we made our goal to keep the site open! My thanks to all Patrons!

Portrait of Toni Fox by: Breezy Kiefiar Toni Commissioned me to turn one of her favorite digital images of herself into a canvas painting. Toni said she was so pleased with it that she has it displayed in her home office.

details: 1. Make your selection at the following link: https://www.facebook.com/kiefyart
2. Complete your transaction here and let the artist know what image you desire. Ms. Breezy will ship you a print in the size you desire right away!

FORMATS

Book Description

Publication Date:December 6, 2013

A poetry book centered on pot written by cannabis activist and artist under the influence, Breezy Kiefair. “Of Pain, poetry, and pot.” Is a collection of cannabis centered poetry in a neobeatnik style. It includes updated versions of Allen Allen Ginsberg – Howls “howl” and “america”, along with an update on “to whom it may concern” by Adrian Mitchell , a cannabis parody of Rifleman’s Creed and many other poems that are all my own.

Would You Like To Pick Breezy’s Brain? This wonderful book is a chance to witness the creative process at work; author Breezy Kiefair (aka Breedheen O’Rilley) is the real deal, a gifted poet/journalist/activist on the forefront of the battle for medical marijuana patients’ rights and for truth in media. And speaking of truth, emotional truth is exactly what you’ll get here. Breezy isn’t afraid to take an open-eyed, unsparing look at society, at herself, at her illnesses, at the lies we tell ourselves and each other — and at the scintillating, breathtaking beauty which is more real and more powerful than all else. Highly recommended.

Written by someone very intimate with pain on many different levels. Beautiful and honest. I can’t wait to find out more about this amazing young woman. I originally borrowed this book. I have now read it twice and I have to own it. It must become a part of my permanent collection, along with anything else I can find which flows from this beautiful author.

The poems and rhythm that comes from the author’s feelings show you that she uses her medical cannabis passion and even frustrations to put her concerns into words we can understand. You can feel her pain – you can feel her pride. The transposed songs were a great touch.

This multi-talented artist and writer amazed me with her insightful and sometimes heartbreaking poetry. Her artwork is not only beautiful, but different from any I have seen. I have actually ordered several individual prints off her website to give as gifts this Christmas. I highly recommend this book.

As an activist,a woman and a HUMAN BEING,, I could feel the pain in Ms. O’Rilley’s poetry. Yet I could also feel the triumph. A must for all “pot’ lovers, I got it for 2.99 for my Kindle and it was MORE than worth it. I’ve read these poems over and over, you will too.

This is an excellent book written by a very gifted, unique woman Breezy Keifair. I loved the whole book and have read it a couple of times so far. She is an artist that does her work under the influence of pot for the pain she is in and you can feel that pain with her words. I could really relate to that and a lot of other things in the book. I highly recommend this book. She is also a very gifted artist besides being a good poet and writer.

Do you use Kiefair.com? Do you support me giving out info on cannabis oil creation for free? Well, if KiefAir.com is to stay afloat with its mini library of cannabis related reference information then I need to make $200 in PROFITS from my art sales by March 1 on my etsy store and book sales.

Have a look at some samples from my portfolio, all of these images may be purchased to support keeping kiefair.com open.

Please remember I only make pennies per art print I sell, so I need to sell a lot of pieces. A patron has already gifted me $100 to bring the hosting fee bar a little lower, but he was a special case, my first patron ever who seems to still want to pay more for some ceramic figures I did when I was about 14. He always sends me some cash during the winter holidays and on my birthday. In truth this anonymous donor has been more of a father to me than my own. One of the few positive male role models i have had in mu life. The rule is to spend it onsomething for myself. I’m going to misbehave this year and give the gift to you. This year I’m putting it towards continuing to give the gift of information via kiefair.com

details: 1. Make your selection at the following link: https://www.facebook.com/kiefyart
2. Complete your transaction here and let the artist know what image you desire. Ms. Breezy will ship you a print in the size you desire right away!

Formats

Book Description

Publication Date:December 6, 2013

A poetry book centered on pot written by cannabis activist and artist under the influence, Breezy Kiefair. “Of Pain, poetry, and pot.” Is a collection of cannabis centered poetry in a neobeatnik style. It includes updated versions of Allen Allen Ginsberg – Howls “howl” and “america”, along with an update on “to whom it may concern” by Adrian Mitchell , a cannabis parody of Rifleman’s Creed and many other poems that are all my own.

Would You Like To Pick Breezy’s Brain? This wonderful book is a chance to witness the creative process at work; author Breezy Kiefair (aka Breedheen O’Rilley) is the real deal, a gifted poet/journalist/activist on the forefront of the battle for medical marijuana patients’ rights and for truth in media. And speaking of truth, emotional truth is exactly what you’ll get here. Breezy isn’t afraid to take an open-eyed, unsparing look at society, at herself, at her illnesses, at the lies we tell ourselves and each other — and at the scintillating, breathtaking beauty which is more real and more powerful than all else. Highly recommended.

Written by someone very intimate with pain on many different levels. Beautiful and honest. I can’t wait to find out more about this amazing young woman. I originally borrowed this book. I have now read it twice and I have to own it. It must become a part of my permanent collection, along with anything else I can find which flows from this beautiful author.

The poems and rhythm that comes from the author’s feelings show you that she uses her medical cannabis passion and even frustrations to put her concerns into words we can understand. You can feel her pain – you can feel her pride. The transposed songs were a great touch.

This multi-talented artist and writer amazed me with her insightful and sometimes heartbreaking poetry. Her artwork is not only beautiful, but different from any I have seen. I have actually ordered several individual prints off her website to give as gifts this Christmas. I highly recommend this book.

As an activist,a woman and a HUMAN BEING,, I could feel the pain in Ms. O’Rilley’s poetry. Yet I could also feel the triumph. A must for all “pot’ lovers, I got it for 2.99 for my Kindle and it was MORE than worth it. I’ve read these poems over and over, you will too.

This is an excellent book written by a very gifted, unique woman Breezy Keifair. I loved the whole book and have read it a couple of times so far. She is an artist that does her work under the influence of pot for the pain she is in and you can feel that pain with her words. I could really relate to that and a lot of other things in the book. I highly recommend this book. She is also a very gifted artist besides being a good poet and writer.

I wore the Heart of Atnimera for many months. Before I continue, everyone should understand that Opals are a very Brittle stone in need of frequent oiling, a crack in an opal is common and I probably bear most of the blame for it cracking by not oiling it properly. I find no fault in the craftsmanship. The opal in the old Heart of Atnimera had broken. On a day when my heart likewise was broken, but that is another tale. Upon hearing my “other tale”. Wren Déjà Vu SmilingDeer sat down at her MaeCody Gems & Jewels bench and crafted me this queenly pendant on a beautiful wire work chain. —

The opal in the old Heart of Atnimera had broken. On a day when my heart likewise was broken. Wren Déjà Vu SmilingDeer sat down at her MaeCody Gems & Jewels bench and crafted me this queenly pendant on a beautiful wire work chain. — with Wren Déjà Vu SmilingDeer in Denver, Colorado.

As soon as the replacement arrived, I couldn’t help myself… I had to wear the new amulet right away… but a few days later…. I thought about the old and broken Heart of Atnimera… still soaking in the massage oil in my sacred space where I left it.

I couldn’t help myself… I had to wear the new amulet right away… but a few days later…. I thought about the old and broken heart of atnimera… still soaking in the massage oil in my sacred space where I left it. Today I went and retreived the heart of atnimera and found a surprise… note the difference in the shades of opals… one is almost like amber dark under the copper. I squeeeled with delight when I found the opal had swollen aw little and the wire work had tightened around the stone meaning I could once again wear the heart of Atnimera with pride

I thought more and more about the old and broken Heart of Atnimera… still soaking in the massage oil in my sacred space where I left it. Today I went and retrieved the heart of Atnimera and found a surprise… note the difference in the shades of opals… one is almost like amber dark under the copper. I squealed with delight when I found the opal had swollen aw little and the wire work had tightened around the stone meaning I could once again wear the heart of Atnimera with pride

The Origin of The Heart of Atnimera

The life of this amulet is already set into it’s creation Breezy. As enchanting an unnamed creation is a bit tricky but worth the time. Your amulet has been carried with me every day, though all the muck and heavy emotions, through all the joys and trials of time spent with the Creator. She was there when I was joyful, she was there when I was in pain. She was there to listen, and soak up my hopes and dreams. She was there to capture the energies of the Triple Goddess to pass them on to a future with the one she was intended for. Intentions… Your name has been placed on each bend, each turn of the coil, and sets of three. Cleansed, smudged and anointed, I give this gift to you. Please give her a name so she might live.
Emerald Gemstone meaning
The emerald is the sacred stone of the goddess Venus. It was thought to preserve love, and has long been the symbol of hope. It is considered by many to be the stone of prophecy. The emerald acts as a tranquilizer for a troubled mind.
The emerald is said to bring the wearer reason and wisdom. The strongest time for the powers of the emerald is said to be spring Lucky for love, give your lover an emerald to stay faithful.
In several cultures the emerald was the symbol for fertilizing rain. In the Christian faith it is the symbol of faith and hope. Healing properties of Emerald
Emerald is used by healers to help heal the heart. The power of the Emerald is highest at the full moon.
Some cultures thought the emerald would heal any disease of the eye. The emerald would be placed in a container of water overnight and the water would be poured on the eyes the next day.
Emerald is a stone of great harmony, wisdom and love. Giving your lover an Emerald will bring the lover closer if the giver’s motives are pure love. The Emerald can be a bridge between 2 people. The Emerald vibrates with love. https://crystal-cure.com/emerald.html
Opal History, Lore and Properties
“Opal…Made up of the glories of the most precious gems, to describe it is a matter of inexpressible difficulty: there is in it the gentler fire of the Ruby, there is the brilliant purple of the Amethyst, there is the sea-green of the Emerald, all shining together in an incredible union. Some aim at rivaling in lustre the brightest azure…of the painter’s palette, others the flame of burning sulphur, or of a fire quickened by oil.” ~ Pliny the Elder
The name Opal is derived from the Sanskrit word “upala”, meaning “valuable stone”. This is believed to be the root word for the Greek term “opallios”, which translates as “color change”.
Opal is thought to have been discovered as long as 4,000 years ago, and myths and lore abound in practically all cultures about this brilliant gemstone. The ancient Greeks thought opal to be the tears of Zeus and prized it as highly as diamonds. They believed opal gave the gift of foresight and prophecy, which would ensure the owner’s success in war, business and life.
The legend of the Australian aborigine tells that opal is ‘creator’s footprint that touched the earth at the base of a rainbow to bring harmony’.
The ancient Romans wore opal as a symbol of hope and purity and believed it could cure illness. In ancient India, opal was referred to as the Goddess of the Rainbow, turned to stone. Ancient Arab cultures believed opal had fallen from the sky and that the play of color was trapped lightning. According to Arab lore, opal could make the wearer invisible. The ancient Australian aborigines, however, believed in a more sinister origin. They thought opal to be half serpent and half devil, and that the brightly colored fire within the stone was an attempt to lure them into the devil’s lair.
Opal has been thought to have healing powers in many world cultures, and in the middle ages, it became known as the Opthalmius, or Eye Stone, and was thought to strengthen eyesight. Blonde maidens wore opals to protect their hair from fading or darkening.
In the Middle Ages, Opal was considered a stone that could provide great luck because it was believed to possess all the virtues of each gemstone whose color was represented in the color spectrum of the opal.
Ethiopian Opal:
This stone is also known as the “Chocolate Opal” because of its chocolate color inside its nodule. Another Opal was discovered with very brilliant colors and mostly red and little blue (unlike those opals mined in Australia) and is called Ethiopian Fire Opal.
There is also Wello Opal which is mined in the high desert of Ethiopia. This is actually a combination of various kinds of opal which are mined in Wello, Ethiopia.
Good Ethiopian opals have diverse play of colors from Neon reds, oranges, green, blue, white, yellow, brown and a fire color. There are even colors that are not present in Australian opals like turquoise and indigos. Ethiopian fire opals are popular as they have striking pattern formations which make each opal so unique.
However, there has also been rumors and superstition about the Opal as being a stone of bad luck. At one point opal had became so popular and wanted that it began to rival the diamond in popularity, so the diamond merchants began spreading the rumor that opals brought bad luck to the wearer. It was quite effective, and even today, there are those who believe it is unlucky to buy or wear one unless it is your birthstone (October)
However, these superstitions of bad luck were not believed by all including the Queen Elizabeth II. She ensured that all her subjects knew that she did not believe in these rumors and superstitions. Throughout her reign, she wore opals herself and gave them to her daughters as gifts. The Queen’s efforts have been credited with helping opal shed its bad luck reputation and regain popularity with the public. http://crystal-cure.com/article-opal-history-properties.html
How to Enchant an Object
To “enchant” an object is to fill it with energy for a specific purpose. While there are all sorts of “ookey-spooky,” and dramatically ritualized methods of doing so, what it all basically boils down to is direct, programmed energy that has been gatherer and shaped by the will of the magician through deliberate visualization. What happens in the mind is a microcosm of what happens in the macrocosm of the physical world. This is what the phrase “As above, so below” means. What happens in the microcosm of our minds can be directly reflected in the macrocosm of the world outside the mind.
So to enchant an object, and there by change it into a talisman, all you need to do is concentrate on directing energy for a specific purpose and direct it into the object. In the case of being “invisible” what you would want to do is visualize yourself walking along in a swirl of concealing mist (this mist represents the energy you are gathering). In you mind, see people starting to look at the mist, only to have their gaze “slide” off, pulled to one side or drawn to something near you rather than focusing *on* you. When you have built a clear image of this in your mind then visualize the ring and see the swirling mist of energy being drawn into and stored within the ring.
When all of the mist has been drawn into the ring you’re done… maybe. At this point you can either “seal” the ring and be done with it, or you can add a “trigger” which will turn the power of the talisman on or off deliberately.
With the former, the power of the talisman will be constantly active and the only way to stop it will be to take it off and place it in a bag or something that has been specifically charged to block the activity of the ring.
With the latter, you install an on/off switch, basically. This can be either as set of spoken words of phrases (make sure it’s something easy to remember, but not so common as to be used in every-day speech: “shields up” and “shields down” works well) or you can use a simple visualization (when you want it to activate, visualize the mist leaving the ring and surrounding you, and when you want it to deactivate visualize the mist being pulled back into the ring.)
Creating the trigger takes a little more work on your part, but is usually well worth it as you can wear the ring at all times without worry. With the other method, you’ll have to deliberately put it on and take it off, which increases the risk of loosing it… and few things are harder to find that an invisibility talisman!
Now as for a protection ritual, I have and example of a personal protection ritual if that’s what you’re actually looking for at http://www.geocities.com/jkarrah/Protection.html
The ring we have been talking about in this example would be perfect to use as the “Personal item” that would be transformed into the talisman.
I would also like to point out that, while the ritual itself appears on the surface to be fairly elaborate, it could be easily adjusted. The cleansing of the ring can be done simply by running it under clear water while visualizing all unwanted energies being washed down the drain, the runes can be drawn on a piece of white paper using ink of your astrological color (if possible write them in a circular pattern the put the ring inside the rune circle), and then just do the chants.
The key to this or any sort of magic is that you have a clear, solid “image” of your intent… what it is you want to have happen. This is what it going to allow your subconscious to gather the energies you need and program them with your desired purpose. If you are uncertain as to *exactly* what it is you intend to accomplish then your results will be uncertain. You don’t have to know the exact mechanics of “how” the task should be accomplished (in fact, it’s usually best if you just set some basic parameters and let the universe take care of the details), but you do need to precisely know and understand the “what” and the “why.”
Also, with an item of jewelry being used as the talisman, it is possible to have the item professionally engraved. For our ring example, if the band is wide enough, you could take it and a straight-line rendition of the protection runes from the above ritual to a jeweler’s and ask if they could engrave those symbols onto the ring for you (do this *before* you perform the ritual).
*A talisman is an object that has been specifically charged to perform a specific function. Talismans are usually, but not always, man made. An amulet, on the other hand, is an object, usually of natural origin (i.e. crystals, stones, plants, *naturally shed* feathers, etc. which have certain “virtues” and magical properties as an inherent part of their existence.http://www.geocities.com/jkarrah/Enchantment.html
The Triple Goddess
The triple moon is a Goddess symbol that represents the Maiden, Mother, and Crone as the waxing, full, and waning moon. It is also associated with feminine energy, mystery and psychic abilities. You often see this symbol on crowns or other head-pieces, particularly worn by High Priestesses.
The Maiden represents enchantment, inception, expansion, the female principle, the promise of new beginnings, youth, excitement, and a carefree erotic aura. The Maiden in Greek Mythology is Persephone – purity – and a representation of new beginnings. Other maiden goddesses include: Brigid, Nimue, among others.
The Mother represents ripeness, fertility, fulfillment, stability, and power. The Mother Goddess in Greek mythology is Demeter, representing wellspring of life, giving and compassionate. Other mother goddesses include: Aa, Ambika, Ceres, Astarte, Lakshmi.
The Crone represents wisdom, repose, and compassion. The Crone in Greek mythology is Hecate – wise, knowing, a culmination of a lifetime of experience. Crone goddesses include: Hel, Maman Brigitte, Oya, Sedna, Skuld, and others.
Using natural and antiqued copper wire

To learn more about Wren Déjà Vu SmilingDeer who created these lovely wire work pendants and has taken such care in charging them, please read

It Was a warm an humid Friday, the topic on everyone’s lips? What are you doing for this year’s 4/20 celebration? I was single minded in my concerns… I had a painting to drop off. Let us back up 6 weeks time. Michelle LaMay announced she would be opening Colorado’s first cannabis History Museum. She got with me (Breezy Kiefair) and asked if I would be interested in donating a painting to the museum. I was informed that my first book, Of Poetry, Pain, and Pot was already to be included among the museum’s exhibits and gift store offerings. I eagerly agreed and allowed Michelle to choose one of my images. I then had the image printed onto canvas and set about touching up that canvas with my own hand and brushes. I had worked many hours a day for many weeks and finally the beauty in my mind had begun to shine through. I called the piece complete and April 18 was the day to hang the canvas in the museum. It was opening day for the museum, so I was kind of expecting everything to be set up and ready to go, but when Michelle opened the trailer, and said, “Help me” there was no considering refusing. You see, an international film crew was on the way and would arrive within 2 hours time. The museum had not yet had the exhibits set up and there was a ton of work. Michelle had shown up with two willing gentlemen (Charlie Washington and Rick Wainwright) but an extra set of hands were both willing and necessary. The 4 of us were as industrious as bees. We did pause for the occasional bowl, but by the time the film crew showed up, nearly everything was picture perfect. It was heartwarming to see a group of individuals coming together to complete a task. Each of us had our own strengths and infirmities, but together we were whole and up to the task. The activity and the honor of having my painting shown was more than enough excitement for me for 4/20 this year.

You may click on any of the below images to begin a slideshow of the day in pictures.

The museum arrives at its 4/20 weekend location eager to receive the cannabis history exhibits.

The museum arrives at its 4/20 weekend location eager to receive the cannabis history exhibits.

There’s a lot of work to be done and just a few hours before an international film crew arrives. Michelle delegates tasks, Rick and Charlie take care of the heavy lifting while Michelle and Breezy give the museum their artists touch.

A mobile cannabis museum — packed into a crowded fifth-wheel with artifacts, interactive displays, photos and media archives on the history of marijuana — that announces its pop-up locations via social media?

Only in Colorado.

“I intend to travel all around the state educating Coloradans about the history of hemp and cannabis,” said Michelle LaMay, the 67-year-old activist behind LaMay’s Cannabis Museum, which opens 4/20 weekend. “I’m parking this weekend in Aurora, and I’ll be posting my location like food trucks do.”

LaMay isn’t lacking passion. As you tour her museum on wheels, she’ll giddily teach you about the state’s laws for carrying, ingesting and growing marijuana — not to mention her own activist roots dating back to 1992 in Mesa County, where she helped collect 5,000 signatures in an attempt to legalize hemp.

Her museum won’t have regular hours or a steady location even, but she’ll announce her hours and location via social media and website. Admission to the museum is free.

“I’ll be at people’s parties and in dispensary parking lots,” LaMay said. “I’ve been booked for those occasions, and I’ll also be at the Pot Pavilion at the Denver County Fair, which I’m very excited about.”

As with LaMay’s five-year-old Cannabis University of Colorado, the museum’s primary goal is education.

“More education about hemp and cannabis can only help raise awareness and acceptance for cannabis and hemp — not just the products but we users also,” LaMay said. “I’m a 67-year-old, and just my mere presence lends credibility to the cause, I’ve been told.”

People say I’m crazy doing what I’m doing,
Well they give me all kinds of warnings to save me from ruin,
When I say that I’m o.k. they look at me kind of strange,
Surely your not happy now you no longer play the game,

People say I’m lazy toking my life away,
Well they give me all kinds of advice designed to strengthen the light in me,
When I tell that I’m doing Fine watching smoke play on the wall,
Don’t you miss the big time girl you best get on the ball!

I’m just sitting here watching the stats go up and up,
They really love to read my words,
I tell them all the things the money hounds,
dont want the people to know,

People asking questions lost in confusion,
Well I warn them when i know of a problem,
Offering solutions,
Well they shake their heads and they look at me as if I’ve lost my mind,
I tell them there’s no hurry…
I’m just sitting here smokin kind,

Like this:

The purpose of this blogpost to assist folks in making smaller batches of cannabis cure oil (aka phoenix tears) specifically written for those in situations requiring caution and little smell, whatever those conditions may be (i.e. cancer pts in non legal states). MAKING CANNABIS CURE OIL IS EASIER THAN FOLKS THINK!!! If you wish make a small batch of cannabis cure oil aka phoenix tears on the down low or are worried about the neighbors smelling what you’re cooking, then this guide is for you. This method works with just a little bit of raw materials to process. I usually reclaim the alcohol solvent, but for the purposes of this post, i’m going ultra low tech and easy for people who wont take the time to run a still because they are complete novices in need of oil…

if you are worried about the legality of this oil, I say to you

“When a life is at stake, and breaking a law will save it, abiding by the law is not a virtue.” ~Breezy Kiefair

******BEFORE YOU ATTEMPT TO EXTRACT

CANNABIS CURE OIL, Please read the following post

first in addition to this post in its ENTIRETY.******

The Frequently asked questions about phoenix tears therapy for the beginner post covers a lot of the science regarding how and why this medication works to combat cancer. The post you are currently reading centers on how to make the cannabis cure oil.

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PLEASE NOTE!

I am not a doctor or licensed herbalist. I am just a lady who has traveled this path trying to offer information to other people considering walking down this path of their own free will.

PLEASE FOLLOW ALL SAFETY PRECAUTIONS!

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What Are Phoenix Tears?

Quite simply, Phoenix Tears are a potent, concentrated form of the cannabis plant. This therapy is also known as R.S.O (Rick Simpson Oil), CannabisCure Oil, Run From the Cure Oil, F.E.C.O (Fully Extracted Cannabis Oil), Jamaican Hash Oil (like you used to get “back in the day”) Cannabis extract, or simply hash oil. Whatever you call it, it is strong medicine that cures most cancers and can treat many disorders/diseases in the body.

I invite you to also follow the below link for more frequently asked questions on how to use this medication.

Some of the most commonly recommended strains by the Rick Simpson Camp of oil creation are white widow and white rhino. Both of these strains are good Indica strains but there are many, many other Indica strains. Indica plants have fat leaves and generally are more earthy in their flavor and smell.

You need a strain high in both THC and CBD. I am of the opinion that all of the compounds of the plant work in concert together to heal cancer. Some people will argue with me that chlorophyll is not necessary, but truly that is a small matter.

Indica strains tend to be sleepier and are better in my opinion for nighttime, however for me, Indica plants are also more effective for deep pain.

Sativa strains are more for daytime. The feeling is more social, more antidepressant, creative, more energetic, and clearer headed. Sativas are also good as a “ distraction” from the pain, they will help you get interested in whatever it is you are doing to help you not notice how much pain you are in.

The sativa strain of marijuana is the complete opposite of the indica strain. Sativa medical marijuana pants are tall, thin plants, with narrow leaves, and generally are a lighter shade of green then their counterpart, the Indica strain. Sativa strains take longer to grow, mature, and require more light. Medicine produced from cannabis sativa plants have lower CBD and higher THC counts which produces a more clear headed, energetic type of high. The flowering stage lasts between 10 to 16 weeks. Plant Origins: Colombia, Mexico, Thailand and Southeast Asia.

remember that cannabis flowers are like roses… roses come in many colors and the right color given to the right person can open many doors… cannabis flowers come with many different effects and the right flower given to the right person with the right illness that flower is good at treating can ease much suffering.

I recommend a Cannabis Indica strain or a cannabis Indica dominant hybrid strain for the curing of cancer. If you are treating another disease, you may want to try different strains of cannabis that are more suited for your condition For example, someone wanting to treat their Post Traumatic Stress Disorder might choose to make their Cannabis Cure Oil from a strain known to be a good treatment for P.T.S.D anxiety symptoms such as Northern Lights. An epileptic or seizure patient may want to make their oil out of strains known to reduce seizure activity such as White Widow, White Rhino, or Life Saver. A chronic fatigue patient may want a sativa based oil for the energetic properties of some of those strains. Likewise, a patient with depression may wish to choose an uplifting euphoric sativa strain to use as an antidepressant. Cannabis Indica strains tend to be high in both Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and Cannabidiol (CBD)

There is nothing wrong with using a mixture of bud and close trim to make phoenix tears oil. I have even known people who used street grade weed (commonly referred to as shwag) to make the oil and saw results. Too often shwag is grown by non-organic methods and harvested before the nutrients have been flushed out of the plant properly. Sometimes, the plant is even harvested before she is completely ripe. That being said, you cannot argue with the results of people who used shwag because that was all they had access to and were able to cure their cancer with it. Because of all these concerns, I recommend everyone grow their own bud, or buy the raw materials from a trusted grower.

What you will need:

a quantity of Indica cannabis flowers or cannabis trim

you can make batches with as little and 1/8 ounce of raw materials, though the yield is very small.

a bag made from a scrap of a clean old t-shirt or some cheese cloth

a 1qt mason jar to soak it in

food grade high proof alcohol (ever-clear works well) Please make sure your alcohol is 190 proof or higher! the higher the proof the lower the water content.

a plant oil such as coconut oil, olive oil, butter, grapeseed oil, hempseed oil in order to help you get the cannabis oil back out of the jar.

What YOU DO

Step 1 Grind it:

Cut or grind your cannabis into small, loose pieces. This increases the surface area for the solvent and maximizes the amount of medication extracted. This step is particularly important if your raw materials have been compressed in any way.

Step 2 Bake it (decarboxylation):

Place your raw materials in a bag made from t-shirt (jersey) material. preheat your oven to 290 degrees fahrenheit (143.3 degrees celsius) Place your bag of raw materials into a glass dish and put into the oven. Heat for at least 20 minutes and up to 60 minutes. AN OVEN THERMOMETER MAY BE NECESSARY! DO NOT EXCEED THIS LEVEL OF HEAT, or you begin to LOSE YOUR MEDICINE.

Step 3 SOAK IT:

Freeze your raw materials for a minimum of 2 hours. Also freeze the alcohol solvent (no it will not become solid and if there is any water in your alcohol, it will freeze to the sides of your container) Put your bag of frozen raw materials into a container to soak. cover with the alcohol you have selected and allow to soak with a lid on it for 2-24 hours. Many different oil makers use different soak times. Some measure their soak time in minutes, some in hours, others in days or weeks. My teacher and I have played with many soak times and have settled upon the 2-24 hour range as ideal for our patients. For small scale extracts, I like 24 hours to maximize the yield.

Step 4 Filter it:

Remove the raw material bag being sure you squeeze as much of the alcohol out as possible. Place the bag in a funnel or strainer and allow the alcohol to drain from the bag thoroughly. Collect all the alcohol! Set up a funnel on top of another container and place a cone shaped coffee filter inside the funnel. Carefully pour the alcohol through the filter and funnel. This removes some of the plant cellulose so that you get a better consistency (less hard) oil in the end process.

Step 5 Evaporate the alcohol:

Leave the filtered alcohol uncovered in a warm cupboard or cabinet. Putting it someplace closed up helps keep the smell away from the neighbors. It may evaporate faster in the open. You want to leave it someplace warm that it is not going to get bumped, spilled or moved. This step can take several days, so be patient. You are left with a thick dark grease like substance in the bottom of the jar. You can access this cannabis cure oil (phoenix tears) in the next step, so dont be worried that you can’t get at the product. If you need ultra concentrated phoenix tears, use a wide mouth flat dish for the evaporation step. you can use a razor blade to scrape the oil off the glass and or a syringe to collect it depending on yield and consistency.

Step 6: time for fats

Add a quantity of coconut oil, olive oil, grapeseed oil, or butter to the jar. Gently heat the jar until the oil is melted and marries with the cannabis oil. Lots of stirring in this step! The less fat you put in the jar, the more potent the end result is… this is the step where you decide your dose. It is easier to add more oil and make it less potent than to add too much oil. If you add too much fat, the only thing you can do to increase the potency is make another batch of oil and add it to the cannabis infused oil you already have. The end result can be used in a variety of cooking methods or if you prefer can be put into vegetable capsules (works best with coconut oil) for use as pills or suppositories. I really like a blend I make with the cannabis plus equal parts coconut oil and honey. For more information and discussion on the method, please click this sentence

Step 7 Store it:

if you have access to empty oral syringes, then draw up the phoenix tears into syringes

If you do not have access to oral syringes, consider making up pills from empty vegetable capsules

If neither of the above are an option, a wide mouth glass container is suitable

DO NOT STORE IN DIRECT SUNLIGHT. No need to refrigerate, if you do they may become too thick to work with.

end-notes:

I am not afraid to tell you that I agonized about writing this tutorial. The responsibility of writing this oil creation tutorial weighed heavy on my mind. I know I need to make the instructions pretty much fool proof. even if i write this flawlessly… with ample warnings and clear language…. what responsibility do i hold karmic or otherwise if someone extracts poorly after reading my tutorial? what level of fool is acceptable for making the oil? How many fools will ignore safety precautions, allow alcohol to build up in the extraction area and become alcohol vapor poisoned or worse will light a joint and go boom for lack of airflow? My teacher is a good oil maker and had to learn his lesson on alcohol vapor poison the hard way… how can I ensure the knowledge I am imparting will not have dangerous consequences if they fall into a fools hands? I have weighed all these concerns in my heart and decided that it was too important of information to with hold it for fear of what people will do with it. In the end, the fear of what people would do with out it is greater than the fear of what they will do with it.

Perhaps you have a friend or mate who becomes intensely uncomfortable in social situations. Or perhaps you yourself have an intense aversion to large crowds or some other phobia that the people around you think you need to “get over”. Getting over these phobias is easier said than done. In this article we will explore some forms of social anxiety from other people’s point of view interspersed with some of my own failures and successes where social anxiety are concerned. I’m going to begin by listing a bunch of attempts that ended with less than successful or mixed results, I will finish up with some recent victories.

Lets take a journey in the way back machine

and look as some of my past attempts to interact in social situations when there are a lot of people around.

July 27, 2010

Longmont Colorado City Council chambers

July 27, 2010 1 hour 15 mins to go. I’m sittin in the council chambers….. first signed up to speak, but its agenda item 11A

On July 27, 2010, I gathered my courage and went down to the Longmont, Colorado City Council Chambers to speak about the Council wanting to ban dispensaries in the city of Longmont. I was terrified. I knew I was walking into a metaphorical “lion’s den” and I was doing it alone. I dressed as professionally as the closet of clothing and fashions provided by the the thrift store on my meager income. I had spent a great deal of time preparing myself for the 3 minute speech I was to give to our city fathers and mothers. I had my speech all written out on 3×5 cards so as to appear more professional. I arrived almost an hour early, but that had more to do with the distance I had to walk and my paranoia that it would take me longer than the average person to walk the 5 mile distance from the place where the RV I lived in was parked and the City Council Chambers. While this experience was a success in that I made it to the city council chambers, I do not count it as a success. I was successful in that I did manage to attend and to give my speech and even go through this same process several more times, even getting my name repeatedly in the Longmont Times Call (the local newspaper) and my little speeches to the city mothers and fathers even were aired on TV, appearing at the time on “The Longmont Channel” (a public access channel serving the Longmont area)

Anyone who may question why I do not consider these exercises a success need only watch the video from one of the city council meetings. Despite the eloquence of my words, you can clearly see (and I even mention) how afraid I am.

links to more experiences so that those along the path may see that it can really take a lot of failure on the social anxiety road before you can reach a shining success… I’m not going to go into each humiliation in great detail, but you can visit the links and see for yourself what I am speaking about here:

Join us at Colorado’s inaugural Ganja Gala, benefiting the Medical Marijuana Assistance Program of America (MMAPA) and National Cannabis Industry Association (NCIA). This Roaring Twenties-themed fundraising joint will celebrate the achievements of the medical cannabis industry with Prohibition Era cocktails, tasting stations serving swell snacks, and gabbing with other cannabis industry leaders to swank twenties era and modern music. Get dolled up in your costume or cocktail glad rags and join us for a night on the town. It’s sure to be the cat’s meow!Need more information? Contact Christie@303-250-0096

I was actually thrown out of the Ganja Gala when a brain injured member of my party engaged people across the vip lines… i was mortified, but also took a stand for the low income people the event coordinators were using for fundraising but not truly helping.

I’ve detailed some pretty sad attempts to interact socially. No matter what I did or how I tried, these social interactions with larger groups of people just kept ending in disaster! Interactions with smaller groups were easier, but still difficult. My fears in social situations had become social anxiety or maybe would be better termed as a social phobia. I simply could not walk into a crowd without running away 3x as fast. Then one day, I found myself interviewing a new roommate and was invited to a concert that I would dearly love to see. I was faced with the old social anxiety dilemma… “do I go and risk running out, or do I not even try?” I decided to keep on trying.

Some of you know what a huge deal attending last night’s concert was for me. Yes, it was amazing to be serenaded by two artists of such high esteem. Yes, it was an enormous gift too big and lovely for me to have even contemplated far outside of what my own income ever has been able to provide… Yet, there is a huge truth that usually would have prevented me from attending. My ptsd has left me with a near phobia of crowds, and it is rare I even attempt attendance where there will be many people except when I need a bit of in person research for kiefair.com and the research cannot possibly be done any other way and is meant to help folks… I am sure there were some folks last night who were waiting to see me run screaming away from the concert. This did not happen. We got there early, and for a full 3 hours I was in the midst of a crowd. In the end, it wasn’t the fear, but sting’s light show towards the end was just way too much stimuli for me (nearly had a seizure for the first time in a long time). When I could not stand any more, my new roommate was so kind, nonjudgemental, and also was more than ready to go, allowing me not to have to fight the crowd on the way out. If you can see why this image would be a huge deal to me to attend and not run from the crowd, then I thank you for cheering me on. ref: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=751610774858934&set=a.151763424843675.27293.100000300558421&type=1&permPage=1

So, what made this time so much different?

1. This concert was a “bucket list item for me” meaning that I wanted to attend a Sting Concert before I died. The fact that I have so often wanted to attend a Sting concert was a definite factor in me overcoming my fear. The person feeling the fear must be excited enough about the event to overrule the fear. A business event within the industry the person works within can be a double edged sword for those with social anxiety. Those types of events appear attractive because there may or may not be people the person having the anxiety knows at the event. For me, industry events are like kryptonite… I always feel like I’m about to jump into a shark tank. It probably has something to do with my past failures at such events where other people needed me to take a stand, no matter how uncomfortable to me… For this reason, it is not my recommendation to mingle work and your attempts to overcome social anxiety at least in the beginning. If you are strong at work from behind your computer, don’t try to change that dynamic too much to start. It’s more rewarding to make this type of growth outside of the work setting and in a fun setting anyway.

2. I did not have time to overthink the event. The invitation happened the night before the event. I had a clear choice without much waiting or anticipation surrounding it. I said yes, and went the next day. I have sometimes found that when I am given too much time to ponder an event, it makes it impossible for me to attend because my mind is given too much time to ponder the negative possibilities.

3. Choose your mates for the battle carefully! The person attending the event with me knew how difficult the crowd would be for me and made every effort to help me through it. When I became overwhelmed with the crowd, a member of my party directed me to a quiet area to recenter. It did not take me long at all to regain my bearings and be able to continue along our way to our seats despite a long walk and a lot of people to get through. In the past, others have reacted to my fear in far less supportive ways causing me to utterly fail in my attempts to overcome. They probably did not realize they were making it harder for me, so no one is to blame really for my previous failure…. but the point is, the right support can = success.

4. I knew I had permission from myself and those in my party to leave if the experience proved to be too much for me or just became overstimulating in general. We stayed through nearly the entire concert, but this permission did come into play towards the end of the event. We left the event slightly early not because of my fear of any crowds, but from the stimuli of the light show on my seizure disorder.

5. Leaving a little early can help you not have to fight the same crowd twice. By either showing up early and/or leaving early or late, you can effectively avoid having to fight crowds too much. It was a far different experience walking out of the event than it had been walking into the event.

Those of you out of state seeking to make the exodus to colorado (or another legal state) have a different set of advise from Bree. She says you should move to the state of your choice in an RV or travel trailer if at all possible. This gives you a “home” while you are looking for places in state. It allows you to try out different areas to get a feel for the towns and if you really want to be there. This also allows you to take the expenses of your move in smaller chunks. You have the expense of the rv and the gas $ to get to the state you choose, then time to recover financially for a few months while you house/apartment hunt. This also frees you from depending on someone in state who may or may not have your best interests at heart (I know of mothers being encouraged to move to a legal state mostly so some activist can make a bunch of money dragging the sick kid to rallies and filling their own pocket instead of the child’s needs).

Breezy wants to remind everyone that the housing market for rentals in colorado moves so fast that it took her 5 months to find a place that met her personal needs. Even with a lack of internet access, she is getting questions along these lines on a very regular basis. I hope these tips help folks both in and out of state in tough positions.

REPRINT of the ad that breezy used to get into her current situation shared as an EXAMPLE AD. SHE DOESN’T NEED TO MOVE.

The ad

Spring is coming and soon it will be time to plant your cannabis for your summer grows. Who in colorado has a room to rent. I have been living with my grandparents for the past year and it has been really nice, however they have house rules preventing me from growing my own medication or extracting medication for my medical needs. For many months now, I had been trying to make art sales in hopes saving up for an RV, but I have only been able to put less than $200 away towards that goal, and very little of that came from art sales. I got a seed donation of $100 when I started the savings fund, and have put every cent of profit from the art (aside from profits that went into donating art pieces to fundraisers for cannabis patients in need). I just need a room to rent, access to a bathroom and kitchen. I don’t eat much (so limited use of your kitchen, obviously i find my own food) and I don’t leave my room much. I’m a cancer patient and chronically ill. I just want to teach what I know, tend to plants, do my art and writing, and rest.

What I really want is to find a situation where I can grow. Here is a video from one of my former grows to prove I have skills

So, Do you find yourself with an extra room you need rented out and extra space you’d like to fill with a grow but you just don’t have the grow skills yet?

Or maybe you have a grow and an extra bedroom and need someone around to make cannabis cure oil, kief, cannabis butter, and/or other infusions with your trim?

Do you find yourself just wishing there was someone knowledgeable around you had in person to show you how to navigate the hemp rope maze that is cannabis healing?

Well, I’m looking for a place to stay with you. I am a proficient cannabis cure oil (phoenix tears) maker having apprenticed 2 years with a master maker before going out on my own. These skills are going to waste in my current location to the detriment of many suffering patients. I will be very up front about the fact that not everyone likes my personality. Everyone knows I’m an eccentric artist, so having an area to isolate myself when I happen to be more eccentric than usual is essential for the happiness of all. Another way to say this is, I have PTSD, and need my space. Dont let that bit of honesty frighten you off.

I’m a loving, giving roommate so long as everyone keeps up on their ends of bargains. I’m willing to pay rent and chip in all the way around, but I’m pretty low income and VERY interested in trading some of my skills in payment for a portion of the rent. If i’m growing for your profit, you provide the supplies, i provide the skills and we decide on a % of the harvest weight that is my wages for work. I am a valid redcard holder who is allowed to grow 18 plants on my own. Someone with an RV sitting on their property or with a guest outbuildings of some type would be ideal…heck, I’d even prolly start making payments to buy the rv off ya.

On location: i dont really care so long as the roomies want a skilled grower and extraction person to learn from. preferably people more able bodied than i so i can share my brain with their muscles? I’d prefer to be out in the country somewhere at high altitude.

I’d love a secluded spot up in the mountains or out in the country where I can grow indoors and out. If you or someone you know has a situation that would fit any or all of these conditions, pleas contact me. Send me a pm, call 7194800210 , or email btokeefer@gmail.com

I’d like to remain in colorado if at all possible. I’m looking to spend no more than $300/month on the room, plus I can chip in at least $50 TOTAL more towards utilities and internet. MUST have internet without data usage restrictions. My activism depends on that. I would love to be up in the mountains somewhere.

I have tons of videos that are in the raw…. some of them are reviews I never got around to polishing up and making presentable for “prime time audiences” other vids are more like home movies from years of activism work… I took some time seriously considering putting them out for your consumption as they are on my g+ profile… I’m thinking a chronological album on g+ may be the best way to put these out there for anyone interested and also to protect myself from others using fragments of my work and claiming them as their own work…. there are already video fragments out that folks who once called me friend and lover are claiming as their own. the album contains some duplicates (working on removing those for you) and various drafts (sometimes the drafts are almost better than what i publish_… for its incomplete and raw nature, I apologize… but here is a slice or real life of cannabis patients. I am seriously considering compiling them together into one video.

Here is some new poetry from the author of the book,

Of Pain, poetry, and pot.” Is a collection of cannabis centered poetry in a neobeatnik style. It includes updated versions of Allen Ginsberg – Howls “howl” and “america”, along with an update on “to whom it may concern” by Adrian Mitchell , a cannabis parody of Rifleman’s Creed and many other poems that are all my own. I hope ya grab your free download while it is available and be sure to lend it to your friends (I have enabled book lending on this piece). The next day to download it for free is December 21

#10 Most Viewed from my youtube channel

Part 3 of the healing…..
Fat Freddy has had a sore on his back for about 3 years and it would not heal! We started putting Rick Simpson Oil on it on November 23, then the next day we checked it and then checked it every 3 days afterwards, changing the oil and bandage every 3 days as well! Here is the progress so far! (WARNING THIS IS GRAPHIC!)

#9 Most Viewed from my youtube channel

I worked a private caregiver’s grow from July 2011 to November 2011. I was paid 1/4 oz medication, a roof over my head for the duration of the grow and use of years old trim with no “sugar” left to medicate me. I was supposed to be medicated for the duration of the grow, and recieve winter lodging NO MATTER WHAT for my efforts. Every silver lining has a touch of grey….

Beyond the citrus end of the pot palate spectrum lies a sour lemon tang tending toward the heay pungency of an open drum of diesel. This odor is so strong in Reservoir’s Sour Diesel strain that it may need to be masked during growing if stealth is a goal or necessity. Even when dried and carried in a pocket, these buds are smelly enough to raise suspicions. Reservoir drew on the Mexican sativa family and the sativa hybrid Chemo in an effort to produce the most psychedelic non-haze sativa possible.

Sour Diesel is a tall, thin plant suitable for sea or screen of green. She stretches in the first 3 weeks of flowering. By maturity she reaches a daunting 6 feet indoors in a slender version of the classic Christmas tree silhouette. Her foliage purples as it ages, and commonly displays pink-hued pistils. The buds are loose and spear-shaped.

Sour Diesel taste combined with its effects may be considered an “exptreme sport” version of cannabis. The stone pulls smokers into the sky fast with a viscerally uplifting pleasure and lots of consciousness expansion in the direction of spirituality. This good-vibe variety may help alleviate chronic depression, as well as the ordinary blahs by encouraging a change in perspective.http://www.kindgreenbuds.com/marijuana-strains/sourdiesel.html

Must be getting early, clocks are running late.
Paint by numbers morning sky, looks so phony.
Dawn is breaking everywhere, light a candle, curse the glare
Draw the curtains I don’t care ’cause it’s alright
I will get by, I will get by, I will get by, I will survive.I see you’ve got your list out, say your piece and get out.
Guess I get the gist of it ’cause it’s alright
Oh, well, anyway, sorry that you feel that way.
The only thing there is to say
Every silver lining’s got a touch of grey
I will get by, I will get by, I will get by, I will survive.It’s a lesson to me
The Ables and the beggars and the thieves
The ABC’s
We all think of
And try to keep a little graceIt’s a lesson to me
The Deltas and the East and the Freeze
The ABC’s we all think of
And try to give a little loveI know the rent is in arrears, the dog has not been fed in years
It’s even worse than it appears ’cause it’s alrightCow is given kerosene, kid can’t read at seventeen
The words he knows are all obscene ’cause it’s alright
I will get by, I will get by, I will get by, I will survive.It’s a lesson to me
The Deltas and the East and the Freeze
The ABC’s we all think of
And try to keep a little loveThe shoe is on the hand it fits, there’s all there really nothing much to it
Whistle through your teeth and spit ’cause it’s alrightOh, well, a touch of gray, kinda suits you anyway,
That’s all I had to say ’cause it’s alright
I will get by, I will get by, I will get by, I will survive.It’s a lesson to me,
The deltas and the East and the free
The ABC’s we all must face,
Try to save a little grace.We will get by. We will get by. We will get by. We will survive
We will get by. We will get by. We will get by. We will survive

#3 and #8 Most Viewed from my youtube channel

The introduction and first chapters of a set of videos in Tribute to the writing of Hannah Hurnard, “Hind’s Feet on High Places” to Art of Breezy Kiefair and the Music of Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. Please give it 20 minutes of your time. Chapter 1 “Invitation to the High Places” i just put music and art to a book that has been a favorite since childhood… my mother used to read me that book…. call it a tribute to her and an introduction of the book to an audience that may otherwise remain unaware of it. I recommend it for anyone with anxiety or PTSD

info on the book from wikipedia:
Hinds’ Feet on High Places
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Hinds’ Feet on High Places
Author(s) Hannah Hurnard
Country United Kingdom
Language English
Genre(s) Christian
Publisher Christian Literature Crusade
Publication date 1955
Media type Print (Hardback & Paperback)
Pages 158 pp.
ISBN NA
Hinds’ Feet on High Places is an allegorical novel by English author Hannah Hurnard. Hinds’ Feet was written in 1955 and has become a very successful work of Christian fiction, seeing new editions published as recently as July, 2005.
[edit]Plot introduction

It is the story of a young woman named Much Afraid, and her journey away from her Fearing family and into the High Places of the Shepherd, guided by her two companions Sorrow and Suffering. It is an allegory of a Christian devotional life from salvation through maturity. It aims to show how a Christian is transformed from unbeliever to immature believer to mature believer, who walks daily with God as easily on the High Places of Joy in the spirit as in the daily life of mundane and oftentimes humiliating tasks that may cause Christians to lose perspective.
The book takes its title from Habakkuk 3:19, “The Lord God is my strength, and he will make my feet like hinds’ feet, and he will make me to walk upon mine high places.”
The story begins in the Valley of Humiliation with Much Afraid, being beset by the unwanted advances of her cousin, Craven Fear, who wishes to marry her. The Family of Fearings seems to have some strong similarities to the Addams Family. Much Afraid is ugly from all outward appearances, walking on club feet, sporting gnarled, deformed hands, and speaking from a crooked mouth that seems to have been made so by a stroke or the like.
The Good Shepherd is tender and gentle with Much Afraid, especially in the beginning. However, His many sudden departures may strike the reader as bizarre, given the human penchant to expect kindly souls to never do everything that may be interpreted as rude or as hurtful in any way. Yet, though the Shepherd leaves in a moment, He returns the same way at the first furtive cry of the forlorn little protagonist. “Come, Shepherd, for I am much afraid!”
When Much Afraid intimates that she would love to be able to dance upon the high places as do the surefooted deer, the Shepherd commends her for this desire. In order to accomplish this, he offers to “plant the seed of love” into her heart. At first sight of the long, black hawthorne-looking seed, she shrieks in fear. Soon, she relents, and after the initial intense pain, she senses that something is indeed different in her, though she still looks the same, for now.
Just when the reader thinks that Much Afraid is about to reach the High Places, the path turns downward towards a seemingly endless desert. There is an incident at the sheer cliff that must be climbed with only one rope, which hangs a long way down to her from the top. Then days are spent in a forest that is shrouded in a thick cloud of fog. During this time Much Afraid is sequestered with her two friends, Sorrow and Suffering, in a log cabin. The climax is an unexpected twist that comes as Much Afraid despairs of ever reaching the High Places.
[edit]Allusions/references to other works

The book bears some stylistic similarities to John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress. The name of the protagonist, Much-Afraid, also appears first in Bunyan’s work.
[edit]References

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First Video Created in 2014

the audio has been reworked by Breezy Kiefair.The base audio was a live performance of “Tin Pan Alley” by Stevie Ray Vaughn and Double Trouble All images created by Breezy Kiefairl.

Dedicated to the low income cannabis patient left toking through tin pan Alley.

“Tin Pan Alley (aka Roughest Place in Town)” is track #23 on the album Essential Stevie Ray Vaughan. It was written by Geddins.

Tin Pan Alley (aka Roughest Place in Town)

Went down to Tin Pan Alley
See what was goin’ on
Things was too hot down there
Couldn’t stay very long
Hey, hey, hey, hey
Alley’s the roughest place I’ve ever been
All the peoples down there
Lord, they are livin’ for their whisky, wine and gin
She get up in the mornin’
Before the break a day
Before she can wash her face and hand
You know she really did go away
Hey, hey, hey, you tell
What kinda place can this here Alley be?
Well now, every women I get here
Every women I get to know
This Alley takes her away from me
I heard a pistol shoot
Yeah, and it was a .44
Somebody killed a crap shooter
‘Cause he didn’t shake, rattle and roll
Hey, hey, hey, hey
What kinda place can a Alley be?
All those people down there
Lord, they are livin’ for their whisky, wine and gin
I heard a woman scream
Yeah, and I peeked through the door
Some cat was workin’ on Annie with a
Lord, Lord with a two by four
Hey, hey, hey, hey
Alley’s the roughest place, I’ve ever been
All the people down there
Lord, they are killin’ for their whisky, wine and gin
I saw a cop standing there
With hand on his gun
Said this is a raid boy now
Run, run, nobody run
Hey, hey, hey, hey
Alley’s the roughest place, I’ve ever been
Yeah, they took me away from Alley
Lord, they took me right back to the pen

“Of Pain, poetry, and pot.” Is a collection of cannabis centered poetry in a neobeatnik style. It includes updated versions of Allen Allen Ginsberg – Howls “howl” and “america”, along with an update on “to whom it may concern” by Adrian Mitchell , a cannabis parody of Rifleman’s Creed and many other poems that are all my own. I hope ya grab your free download while it is available and be sure to lend it to your friends (I have enabled book lending on this piece). Yes, I am aware of the odd format in the table of contents. I assure you that is semi-intentional. and please! Share these links around so the pot poetry can be read easily.
another link for the paperback

This multi-talented artist and writer amazed me with her insightful and sometimes heartbreaking poetry. Her artwork is not only beautiful, but different from any I have seen. I have actually ordered several individual prints off her website to give as gifts this Christmas. I highly recommend this book.

Would You Like To Pick Breezy’s Brain? This wonderful book is a chance to witness the creative process at work; author Breezy Kiefair (aka Breedheen O’Rilley) is the real deal, a gifted poet/journalist/activist on the forefront of the battle for medical marijuana patients’ rights and for truth in media. And speaking of truth, emotional truth is exactly what you’ll get here. Breezy isn’t afraid to take an open-eyed, unsparing look at society, at herself, at her illnesses, at the lies we tell ourselves and each other — and at the scintillating, breathtaking beauty which is more real and more powerful than all else. Highly recommended.

A bit of Cancer poetry for thought…

To Whom It May ConcernI was run over by the truth one day.Ever since the diagnosis I have been this waySo burn my body with radiationTell me lies about cancer.

Heard the alarm clock screaming with pain,Couldn’t find myself so I went back to sleep againSo fill my veins with Chemoburn my body with radiationTell me lies about cancer. Every time I shut my eyes, all I see is pain.Made a little ribbon to remember all the namesSo empty out my bank accountfill my veins with chemoburn my body with radiationTell me lies about cancer. I hear they are thinking surgery, hope it’s not my brains.They’re only gutting fishes for their own personal gain.So numb my brain with Morphineempty out my bank accountfill my veins with chemoburn my body with radiationTell me lies about cancer. Where were you at the time of the crime?Ripping up the Hippocratic oath, just to make a dime?So chain my Life with hopelessnessnumb my brain with Morphineempty out my bank accountfill my veins with chemoburn my body with radiationTell me lies about cancer

You put your doctors in, they take their conscience out,They take the human being and they twist it all aboutSo take my world awaychain my Life with hopelessnessnumb my brain with Morphineempty out my bank accountfill my veins with chemoburn my body with radiationTell me lies about cancer–

I admit to being a deeply flawed and scarred individual. I have shared several links this morning regarding Post Traumatic Stress Disorder to help people better understand what it is like to live inside a PTSD mind and provide some do’s and don’ts on how to deal with and help someone suffering with this mental illness. I have also provided some links on Passive–aggressive behavior to shed some light on how someone exhibiting passive aggressive tendencies could easily escalate the symptoms of someone suffering from PTSD. I hope this information will be helpful to my friends in dealing with me and will also shed some light on the dynamics of interactions with others and why things have spiraled out of control over the past 2 years or so.

I was sure to post more articles about ptsd than passive aggressive behaviors to take more responsibility for being an individual with ptsd than i am laying blame for passive aggressive behaviors that tend to push my ptsd buttons.

Lets look at Post Traumatic Stress Disorder first.

_________________________

What is post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD?

PTSD is an anxiety disorder that some people get after seeing or living through a dangerous event.

When in danger, it’s natural to feel afraid. This fear triggers many split-second changes in the body to prepare to defend against the danger or to avoid it. This “fight-or-flight” response is a healthy reaction meant to protect a person from harm. But in PTSD, this reaction is changed or damaged. People who have PTSD may feel stressed or frightened even when they’re no longer in danger.

Who gets PTSD?

Anyone can get PTSD at any age. This includes war veterans and survivors of physical and sexual assault, abuse, accidents, disasters, and many other serious events.

Not everyone with PTSD has been through a dangerous event. Some people get PTSD after a friend or family member experiences danger or is harmed. The sudden, unexpected death of a loved one can also cause PTSD.

What are the symptoms of PTSD?

PTSD can cause many symptoms. These symptoms can be grouped into three categories:

1. Re-experiencing symptoms:Flashbacks—reliving the trauma over and over, including physical symptoms like a racing heart or sweating
Bad dreams
Frightening thoughts.
Re-experiencing symptoms may cause problems in a person’s everyday routine. They can start from the person’s own thoughts and feelings. Words, objects, or situations that are reminders of the event can also trigger re-experiencing.

2. Avoidance symptoms:
Staying away from places, events, or objects that are reminders of the experience
Feeling emotionally numb
Feeling strong guilt, depression, or worry
Losing interest in activities that were enjoyable in the past
Having trouble remembering the dangerous event.
Things that remind a person of the traumatic event can trigger avoidance symptoms. These symptoms may cause a person to change his or her personal routine. For example, after a bad car accident, a person who usually drives may avoid driving or riding in a car.

3. Hyperarousal symptoms:
Being easily startled
Feeling tense or “on edge”
Having difficulty sleeping, and/or having angry outbursts.
Hyperarousal symptoms are usually constant, instead of being triggered by things that remind one of the traumatic event. They can make the person feel stressed and angry. These symptoms may make it hard to do daily tasks, such as sleeping, eating, or concentrating.

It’s natural to have some of these symptoms after a dangerous event. Sometimes people have very serious symptoms that go away after a few weeks. This is called acute stress disorder, or ASD. When the symptoms last more than a few weeks and become an ongoing problem, they might be PTSD. Some people with PTSD don’t show any symptoms for weeks or months.

Do children react differently than adults?

Children and teens can have extreme reactions to trauma, but their symptoms may not be the same as adults.1 In very young children, these symptoms can include:

Bedwetting, when they’d learned how to use the toilet before
Forgetting how or being unable to talk
Acting out the scary event during playtime
Being unusually clingy with a parent or other adult.
Older children and teens usually show symptoms more like those seen in adults. They may also develop disruptive, disrespectful, or destructive behaviors. Older children and teens may feel guilty for not preventing injury or deaths. They may also have thoughts of revenge. For more information, see the NIMH booklets on helping children cope with violence and disasters.

How is PTSD detected?

A doctor who has experience helping people with mental illnesses, such as a psychiatrist or psychologist, can diagnose PTSD. The diagnosis is made after the doctor talks with the person who has symptoms of PTSD.

To be diagnosed with PTSD, a person must have all of the following for at least 1 month:
At least one re-experiencing symptom
At least three avoidance symptoms
At least two hyperarousal symptoms
Symptoms that make it hard to go about daily life, go to school or work, be with friends, and take care of important tasks.
Why do some people get PTSD and other people do not?

It is important to remember that not everyone who lives through a dangerous event gets PTSD. In fact, most will not get the disorder.

Many factors play a part in whether a person will get PTSD. Some of these are risk factors that make a person more likely to get PTSD. Other factors, called resilience factors, can help reduce the risk of the disorder. Some of these risk and resilience factors are present before the trauma and others become important during and after a traumatic event.

Risk factors for PTSD include: 2
Living through dangerous events and traumas
Having a history of mental illness
Getting hurt
Seeing people hurt or killed
Feeling horror, helplessness, or extreme fear
Having little or no social support after the event
Dealing with extra stress after the event, such as loss of a loved one, pain and injury, or loss of a job or home.
Resilience factors that may reduce the risk of PTSD include: 3
Seeking out support from other people, such as friends and family
Finding a support group after a traumatic event
Feeling good about one’s own actions in the face of danger
Having a coping strategy, or a way of getting through the bad event and learning from it
Being able to act and respond effectively despite feeling fear.
Researchers are studying the importance of various risk and resilience factors. With more study, it may be possible someday to predict who is likely to get PTSD and prevent it.

How is PTSD treated?

The main treatments for people with PTSD are psychotherapy (“talk” therapy), medications, or both. Everyone is different, so a treatment that works for one person may not work for another. It is important for anyone with PTSD to be treated by a mental health care provider who is experienced with PTSD. Some people with PTSD need to try different treatments to find what works for their symptoms.

If someone with PTSD is going through an ongoing trauma, such as being in an abusive relationship, both of the problems need to be treated. Other ongoing problems can include panic disorder, depression, substance abuse, and feeling suicidal.

Psychotherapy

Psychotherapy is “talk” therapy. It involves talking with a mental health professional to treat a mental illness. Psychotherapy can occur one-on-one or in a group. Talk therapy treatment for PTSD usually lasts 6 to 12 weeks, but can take more time. Research shows that support from family and friends can be an important part of therapy.

Many types of psychotherapy can help people with PTSD. Some types target the symptoms of PTSD directly. Other therapies focus on social, family, or job-related problems. The doctor or therapist may combine different therapies depending on each person’s needs.

One helpful therapy is called cognitive behavioral therapy, or CBT. There are several parts to CBT, including:

Exposure therapy. This therapy helps people face and control their fear. It exposes them to the trauma they experienced in a safe way. It uses mental imagery, writing, or visits to the place where the event happened. The therapist uses these tools to help people with PTSD cope with their feelings.
Cognitive restructuring. This therapy helps people make sense of the bad memories. Sometimes people remember the event differently than how it happened. They may feel guilt or shame about what is not their fault. The therapist helps people with PTSD look at what happened in a realistic way.
Stress inoculation training. This therapy tries to reduce PTSD symptoms by teaching a person how to reduce anxiety. Like cognitive restructuring, this treatment helps people look at their memories in a healthy way.
Other types of treatment can also help people with PTSD. People with PTSD should talk about all treatment options with their therapist.

How Talk Therapies Help People Overcome PTSD
Talk therapies teach people helpful ways to react to frightening events that trigger their PTSD symptoms. Based on this general goal, different types of therapy may:

Teach about trauma and its effects.
Use relaxation and anger control skills.
Provide tips for better sleep, diet, and exercise habits.
Help people identify and deal with guilt, shame, and other feelings about the event.
Focus on changing how people react to their PTSD symptoms. For example, therapy helps people visit places and people that are reminders of the trauma.

What efforts are under way to improve the detection and treatment of PTSD?

Researchers have learned a lot in the last decade about fear, stress, and PTSD. Scientists are also learning about how people form memories. This is important because creating very powerful fear-related memories seems to be a major part of PTSD. Researchers are also exploring how people can create “safety” memories to replace the bad memories that form after a trauma. NIMH’s goal in supporting this research is to improve treatment and find ways to prevent the disorder.

PTSD research also includes the following examples:
Using powerful new research methods, such as brain imaging and the study of genes, to find out more about what leads to PTSD, when it happens, and who is most at risk.
Trying to understand why some people get PTSD and others do not. Knowing this can help health care professionals predict who might get PTSD and provide early treatment.
Focusing on ways to examine pre-trauma, trauma, and post-trauma risk and resilience factors all at once.
Looking for treatments that reduce the impact traumatic memories have on our emotions.
Improving the way people are screened for PTSD, given early treatment, and tracked after a mass trauma.
Developing new approaches in self-testing and screening to help people know when it’s time to call a doctor.
Testing ways to help family doctors detect and treat PTSD or refer people with PTSD to mental health specialists.
For more information on PTSD research, please see NIMH’s PTSD Research online Fact Sheet or the PTSD Clinical Trials Web site.

How can I help a friend or relative who has PTSD?

If you know someone who has PTSD, it affects you too. The first and most important thing you can do to help a friend or relative is to help him or her get the right diagnosis and treatment. You may need to make an appointment for your friend or relative and go with him or her to see the doctor. Encourage him or her to stay in treatment, or to seek different treatment if his or her symptoms don’t get better after 6 to 8 weeks.

To help a friend or relative, you can:
Offer emotional support, understanding, patience, and encouragement.
Learn about PTSD so you can understand what your friend or relative is experiencing.
Talk to your friend or relative, and listen carefully.
Listen to feelings your friend or relative expresses and be understanding of situations that may trigger PTSD symptoms.
Invite your friend or relative out for positive distractions such as walks, outings, and other activities.
Remind your friend or relative that, with time and treatment, he or she can get better.
Never ignore comments about your friend or relative harming him or herself, and report such comments to your friend’s or relative’s therapist or doctor.

How can I help myself?

It may be very hard to take that first step to help yourself. It is important to realize that although it may take some time, with treatment, you can get better.

To help yourself:
Talk to your doctor about treatment options.
Engage in mild activity or exercise to help reduce stress.
Set realistic goals for yourself.
Break up large tasks into small ones, set some priorities, and do what you can as you can.
Try to spend time with other people and confide in a trusted friend or relative. Tell others about things that may trigger symptoms.
Expect your symptoms to improve gradually, not immediately.
Identify and seek out comforting situations, places, and people.

Helping Someone with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder

It can be hard to handle having a close friend or family member with post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). They may struggle with irritability, have problems sleeping at night, be unable to focus, feel depressed or act anxious most of the time. In fact, for some people the symptoms can be so severe that treatment at a certified post traumatic stress disorder treatment center may be necessary. PTSD treatment facilities have been shown to be very beneficial to the health and overall well-being of those with this disorder.

How can you deal with this situation? The following steps can serve as helpful tips for dealing with and loving someone with PTSD.

Learn everything you can about PTSD. By knowing all of this information, you will be better able to handle the situation.
Exercise together. Exercising strengthens the overall body and improves health.
Don’t judge them.
Be there to listen. Make your self available to them when they need to talk. Be an active listener by giving input when needed.
Show respect. Respect them even though they may be having a difficult time at the moment.
Look out for them. Show you care by recognizing when everything doesn’t seem to be okay.
Allow room for mistakes. Recognize that they will make mistakes, but always be there to forgive them and offer help if needed.
Talk positively.
Give them their space. Your loved one may not always want your opinion on everything, be willing to step aside every once in a while and give them some space.
Be active together. Planning and participating in family activities can be a fun way to interact and show them you don’t look down on them.
Love them.
Don’t belittle them. While it is important to not expect too much, not expecting anything at all is unnecessary and can be hurtful.
Be patient.
Avoid harsh remarks. Stay away from telling your friend or family member to get over their problems, this may only make problems worse.
Encourage their self-esteem.
Take care of yourself. Remember that you can’t take care of someone else if you haven’t dealt with yourself first. In many cases seeking out a friend to help you is beneficial.
In serious situations, it may be helpful to seek out the advice and assistance of a medical professional. In addition, post traumatic stress disorder treatment centers are available for anyone suffering from this disorder. A problem like PTSD can escalate quickly. If help is not sought out soon enough the problem may become increasingly worse to the point where full recovery may never be possible.

Helping a Family Member Who Has PTSD

When someone has PTSD, it can change family life. The person with PTSD may act differently and get angry easily. He or she may not want to do things you used to enjoy together.
You may feel scared and frustrated about the changes you see in your loved one. You also may feel angry about what’s happening to your family, or wonder if things will ever go back to the way they were. These feelings and worries are common in people who have a family member with PTSD.
It is important to learn about PTSD so you can understand why it happened, how it is treated, and what you can do to help. But you also need to take care of yourself. Changes in family life are stressful, and taking care of yourself will make it easier to cope.
How can I help?

You may feel helpless, but there are many things you can do. Nobody expects you to have all the answers.
Here are ways you can help:
Learn as much as you can about PTSD. Knowing how PTSD affects people may help you understand what your family member is going through. The more you know, the better you and your family can handle PTSD.
Offer to go to doctor visits with your family member. You can help keep track of medicine and therapy, and you can be there for support.
Tell your loved one you want to listen and that you also understand if he or she doesn’t feel like talking.
Plan family activities together, like having dinner or going to a movie.
Take a walk, go for a bike ride, or do some other physical activity together. Exercise is important for health and helps clear your mind.
Encourage contact with family and close friends. A support system will help your family member get through difficult changes and stressful times.
Your family member may not want your help. If this happens, keep in mind that withdrawal can be a symptom of PTSD. A person who withdraws may not feel like talking, taking part in group activities, or being around other people. Give your loved one space, but tell him or her that you will always be ready to help.
How can I deal with anger or violent behavior?

Your family member may feel angry about many things. Anger is a normal reaction to trauma, but it can hurt relationships and make it hard to think clearly. Anger also can be frightening.
If anger leads to violent behavior or abuse, it’s dangerous. Go to a safe place and call for help right away. Make sure children are in a safe place as well.
It’s hard to talk to someone who is angry. One thing you can do is set up a time-out system. This helps you find a way to talk even while angry. Here’s one way to do this.
Agree that either of you can call a time-out at any time.
Agree that when someone calls a time-out, the discussion must stop right then.
Decide on a signal you will use to call a time-out. The signal can be a word that you say or a hand signal.
Agree to tell each other where you will be and what you will be doing during the time-out. Tell each other what time you will come back.
While you are taking a time-out, don’t focus on how angry you feel. Instead, think calmly about how you will talk things over and solve the problem.
After you come back

Take turns talking about solutions to the problem. Listen without interrupting.
Use statements starting with “I,” such as “I think” or “I feel.” Using “you” statements can sound accusing.
Be open to each other’s ideas. Don’t criticize each other.
Focus on things you both think will work. It’s likely you will both have good ideas.
Together, agree which solutions you will use.
How can I communicate better?

You and your family may have trouble talking about feelings, worries, and everyday problems. Here are some ways to communicate better:
Be clear and to the point.
Be positive. Blame and negative talk won’t help the situation.
Be a good listener. Don’t argue or interrupt. Repeat what you hear to make sure you understand, and ask questions if you need to know more.
Put your feelings into words. Your loved one may not know you are sad or frustrated unless you are clear about your feelings.
Help your family member put feelings into words. Ask, “Are you feeling angry? Sad? Worried?”
Ask how you can help.
Don’t give advice unless you are asked.
If your family is having a lot of trouble talking things over, consider trying family therapy. Family therapy is a type of counseling that involves your whole family. A therapist helps you and your family communicate, maintain good relationships, and cope with tough emotions.
During therapy, each person can talk about how a problem is affecting the family. Family therapy can help family members understand and cope with PTSD.
Your health professional or a religious or social services organization can help you find a family therapist who specializes in PTSD.
How can I take care of myself?

Helping a person with PTSD can be hard on you. You may have your own feelings of fear and anger about the trauma. You may feel guilty because you wish your family member would just forget his or her problems and get on with life. You may feel confused or frustrated because your loved one has changed, and you may worry that your family life will never get back to normal.
All of this can drain you. It can affect your health and make it hard for you to help your loved one. If you’re not careful, you may get sick yourself, become depressed, or burn out and stop helping your loved one.
To help yourself, you need to take care of yourself and have other people help you.
Care for yourself

Don’t feel guilty or feel that you have to know it all. Remind yourself that nobody has all the answers. It’s normal to feel helpless at times.
Don’t feel bad if things change slowly. You cannot change anyone. People have to change themselves.
Take care of your physical and mental health. If you feel yourself getting sick or often feel sad and hopeless, see your doctor.
Don’t give up your outside life. Make time for activities and hobbies you enjoy. Continue to see your friends.
Take time to be by yourself. Find a quiet place to gather your thoughts and “recharge.”
Get regular exercise, even just a few minutes a day. Exercise is a healthy way to deal with stress.
Eat healthy foods. When you are busy, it may seem easier to eat fast food than to prepare healthy meals. But healthy foods will give you more energy to carry you through the day.
Remember the good things. It’s easy to get weighed down by worry and stress. But don’t forget to see and celebrate the good things that happen to you and your family.
Get help

During difficult times, it is important to have people in your life who you can depend on. These people are your support network. They can help you with everyday jobs, like taking a child to school, or by giving you love and understanding.
You may get support from:
Family members
Friends, coworkers, and neighbors
Members of your religious or spiritual group
Support groups
Doctors and other health professionals

Imagine this: you’re allergic to cats. You’ve just been exposed to cat dander and your eyes are a soggy, drippy red mess. You sneeze uncontrollably multiple times in a row. Your skin becomes itchy, red, and full of welts. You’re feeling pretty miserable.

A friend walks up to you.

“Hey, no worries,” he exclaims casually, “there’s nothing to be allergic to!”

Uh, what?

“Sure there is — I’m allergic to cats,” you’d probably say.

“Nah,” says your friend, “just stop sneezing. You’ll be okay.”

“What?! I can’t just STOP sneezing on a dime,” you retort.

“Sure you can. There’s nothing wrong with you,” he insists.

“Uhm, care to explain these welts, then? And the red eyes? And the sneezing?!”

Sounds frustrating, doesn’t it? If you suffer from allergies, you know that a reaction to an allergen can produce a truly miserable day. And while panic disorder is no allergy, it produces its own unique brand of misery, too.

And that misery can be compounded by how others react to a panic attack. Hopefully, no one would ever tell an allergy sufferer to “just stop sneezing” or to “make those welts go away.” It would be ineffective and frustrating advice.

However, as a panic sufferer myself, I’ve received a lot of ineffective and frustrating advice over the past few years. Most of it is delivered sincerely, with the absolute best of intentions, from people whom I care about. So, it often hurts to let these people know that their advice isn’t helping (and perhaps is even making the panic attack worse!). It’s not easy. If you haven’t yet developed a thick enough skin to ignore the below advice (I sure haven’t!), please share the below tips with family and friends who care about you.

This post was inspired by this list of things you shouldn’t say to someone who is depressed.

You say: “Just calm down.”
We want to say: “Okay, HOW!?”

Let’s pick this one apart piece by piece. “Just” implies that the act of calming down is a simple one. It’s not. For someone in the midst of panic, calming down can be an extraordinarily difficult task. For you, it might be effortless; for those of us with panic disorder, it might involve medication, breathing exercises, distraction, rituals, positive self-talk and reassurance, and/or time.

The “calm down” part is also problematic in and of itself. If you don’t have any tools, you can’t build a house, right? Unless you can construct some tools from thin air, you’re out of luck. Likewise, if we don’t have any tools or techniques (like the breathing exercises mentioned above) that can help us to become calmer, we can’t “build” anything. We can’t construct a ladder that will allow us to climb our way out of a panic attack. And, the added stress of being unable to comply with a “calm down” request might compound our anxiety.

Better response: Can I help you calm down? Is there anything I can do?

You say: “Why can’t you just relax?”
We want to say: “It’s a bit more complicated than you think!”

It’s like trying to relax while you’re being chased by a wild animal. Or while you’re frantically trying to find your way out of a burning building. Put simply, our panic-filled bodies aren’t capable of turning off the fight-or-flight impulse on cue. We’re not equipped with a switch. Even a steadfast resolve to relax will probably only incite further frustration over the fact that our body is going haywire.

True story: during my very first biofeedback session, the practitioner hooked me up to a computer that measures anxiety via skin conductance (read: sweat), hand temperature, heart rate, and breathing rate. As soon as she said, “Okay, now try to relax!”, my anxiety level (as measured objectively by a computer) surged upward. This is common!

Better response: I’m here for you. What can I do to help you relax?

You say: “There’s nothing wrong with you.”
We want to say: “Oh yeah? Then why does it feel like I’m going to have a (insert-severe medical-condition-here)?”

Classic line, often delivered by well-intentioned close friends, family, and significant others. Sometimes, this sentiment could be helpful — but only if we’re fretting over the “Is this just panic, or is it a heart attack or a stroke!?” question. Otherwise, it’s usually an unhelpful phrase that makes us want to yell, “Yes! There IS something wrong with me at the moment! I’m panicking, and it’s terrifyingly uncomfortable! THAT is what’s wrong!”

Better response: This must be uncomfortable. Can I do anything to make it better?

You say: “Sit down.”
We want to say: “But sitting down makes me more anxious!”

Usually, sitting down is a relaxing activity. We sit down to eat, to watch television, and to read a good book — and all of those events are generally agreeable and soothing. However, merely assuming a seated position isn’t going to act as a panacea.

The panic response sends a rush of adrenaline into our bloodstream that compels us to either fight or flee. It makes us feel like we need to be hypervigilant in order to ensure our survival. If you were really being chased by a wild animal, for example, sitting down would do you no good. That’s why the impulse to stand upright and stay alert is so strong. Leave this one up to the panicker: if we feel more comfortable sitting down, help us to find a safe spot. If we need to pace or go for a walk in order to calm down, let us.

While it may be true that our body and mind are in overdrive, we often feel like we cannot control these reactions. In the midst of a rapid heartbeat, a cascading series of negative thoughts, and an intense urge to escape, having someone inform us that we’re overreacting is not helpful. We’re often aware that our body and mind are overreacting, but we may not yet possess the skills to disengage our frantic nervous system.

Better response: If you want, I’ll wait here with you until this passes.

Even though the above statements aren’t helpful to hear during a panic attack, some might be more appropriate after the threat of imminent panic has passed. If you know someone with panic disorder and want to be a great support person for them, check out this guide.

If you’ve ever had a panic attack, what’s the most unhelpful thing you’ve heard from someone who is trying to help? Share your thoughts in the comments or find me on Twitter @summerberetsky.

Stay tuned for the second half of this list — based on your comments — later in the week.

PTSD: 5 Rules to Help a Friend

by Suzanne Grosser

Someone you love has Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. PTSD sufferers need help. You want to help them. I warn you, it won’t be easy. If you care enough about them to read this page, they are lucky to have you. But don’t expect them to realize that for a long time.

Rule #1: Do not take her behavior personally.
This is not about you. It is about her fear. It is about her anxiety. It is about her pain. This is her post traumatic stress. It is not about you. Understanding this does not make the problems (or obnoxious behaviors) go away. But it can keep your feelings and your relationship from being hurt unnecessarily by PTSD.

Post traumatic stress disorder is an illness. Once you accept this, you can treat PTSD like any other disease. If she had the flu, you wouldn’t expect her to be all cheerful and chatty. You would bring her a box of tissues and some orange juice. You’d keep her company if that’s what she wanted. You’d let her rest, if she wanted to be alone. Either way, you would not take it personally.

You would encourage your friend to get treatment. She needs it, but she may resist it.

Rule #2: Set boundaries
Do not under any circumstances tolerate unacceptable behavior.

Do not tolerate abuse of any kind. You are not a punching bag or a target for degrading insults. You do not deserve that and you will not help your friend that way either. If he hits you, leave. If you stay, you will only endanger yourself and you will give him one more thing to hate himself for, later. Don’t do it.

Do not do everything for him. I can not tell you where the line between helping a friend and being co-dependent is – but your gut will tell you. Give as much as feels right to you. Do not accept the guilt trip you will be handed when you refuse to give everything. Do not feel guilty for having a life outside of his problems. Someday he will join you there. But he’s not ready yet.

Rule #3: Do not expect much in return.
Right now, he doesn’t have much to offer. He’s struggling to get through the day without losing his temper, or drinking too much. He’s doing good if he can get to his doctor appointments and take his medications properly.

You will need your own support network, because he’s got all he can handle to take care of himself. PTSD is taking all his energy to cope with. You will be putting more into this relationship than you will get back out, at least for awhile. He may occasionally acknowledge some of what you do for him. Accept that as the precious gift that it is. It is a sign of his healing. Right now, it is all he has to give.

Rule #4: Do not judge.
She needs to talk abut it. It sucks to hear about it. Try to remember that living through it was worse. Now, because of PTSD, she is going over and over it in her mind. Reliving the horror everyday. This is what is making her sick. This is the poison that is eating away at her. Telling someone is like washing out a infected cut. It stings, it burns, it grosses out people, but it is the only way to get rid of the poison.

Her greatest need is to tell what happened. Her greatest fear is that if she tells, she will lose your love. You probably won’t understand what it was like and she may have done things you both know are wrong. She is afraid of being judged. She has already lost a big part of herself to this trauma. She can’t stand to lose you, too. And if she tells, maybe she will.

It will take a great deal of courage for her to talk about her trauma. So please listen, and don’t judge her. She is still the person you used to know. But she has been hurt, big time, and she is trying to piece her life back together. In time, she will see her actions clearly and make amends if necessary. But right now, she needs to tell someone and not be rejected for the telling. Here are some tips to help you listen to her story.

Rule #5: Have fun.
This is absolutely impossible when you are dealing with PTSD – and absolutely essential. You’ll just have to figure it out. He won’t want to, but maybe he will do it to humor you. He would rather wallow in his pain, but you’re not going to allow that. He is stuck and you can intend to help him get unstuck.

Watch a silly movie together. Gather some friends and play board games. Practice blowing soap bubbles. Buy one of those giant soap bubble rings and see if you can get it to work. Go for a walk and jump into, not over, the puddles. Eat watermelon, and have a seed spitting contest. If it’s the wrong time of year for watermelon, build a snowman instead.

Relationships and PTSD

How does trauma affect relationships?

Trauma survivors with PTSD may have trouble with their close family relationships or friendships. The symptoms of PTSD can cause problems with trust, closeness, communication, and problem solving. These problems may affect the way the survivor acts with others. In turn, the way a loved one responds to him or her affects the trauma survivor. A circular pattern can develop that may sometimes harm relationships.
How might trauma survivors react?

In the first weeks and months following a trauma, survivors may feel angry, detached, tense or worried in their relationships. In time, most are able to resume their prior level of closeness in relationships. Yet the 5% to 10% of survivors who develop PTSD may have lasting relationship problems.
Survivors with PTSD may feel distant from others and feel numb. They may have less interest in social or sexual activities. Because survivors feel irritable, on guard, jumpy, worried, or nervous, they may not be able to relax or be intimate. They may also feel an increased need to protect their loved ones. They may come across as tense or demanding.
The trauma survivor may often have trauma memories or flashbacks. He or she might go to great lengths to avoid such memories. Survivors may avoid any activity that could trigger a memory. If the survivor has trouble sleeping or has nightmares, both the survivor and partner may not be able to get enough rest. This may make sleeping together harder.
Survivors often struggle with intense anger and impulses. In order to suppress angry feelings and actions, they may avoid closeness. They may push away or find fault with loved ones and friends. Also, drinking and drug problems, which can be an attempt to cope with PTSD, can destroy intimacy and friendships. Verbal or physical violence can occur.
In other cases, survivors may depend too much on their partners, family members, and friends. This could also include support persons such as health care providers or therapists.
Dealing with these symptoms can take up a lot of the survivor’s attention. He or she may not be able to focus on the partner. It may be hard to listen carefully and make decisions together with someone else. Partners may come to feel that talking together and working as a team are not possible.
How might loved ones react?

Partners, friends, or family members may feel hurt, cut off, or down because the survivor has not been able to get over the trauma. Loved ones may become angry or distant toward the survivor. They may feel pressured, tense, and controlled. The survivor’s symptoms can make a loved one feel like he or she is living in a war zone or in constant threat of danger. Living with someone who has PTSD can sometimes lead the partner to have some of the same feelings of having been through trauma.
In sum, a person who goes through a trauma may have certain common reactions. These reactions affect the people around the survivor. Family, friends, and others then react to how the survivor is behaving. This in turn comes back to affect the person who went through the trauma.
Trauma types and relationships

Certain types of “man-made” traumas can have a more severe effect on relationships. These traumas include:
Childhood sexual and physical abuse
Rape
Domestic violence
Combat
Terrorism
Genocide
Torture
Kidnapping
Prisoner of war
Survivors of man-made traumas often feel a lasting sense of terror, horror, endangerment, and betrayal. These feelings affect how they relate to others. They may feel like they are letting down their guard if they get close to someone else and trust them. This is not to say a survivor never feels a strong bond of love or friendship. However, a close relationship can also feel scary or dangerous to a trauma survivor.
Do all trauma survivors have relationship problems?

Many trauma survivors do not develop PTSD. Also, many people with PTSD do not have relationship problems. People with PTSD can create and maintain good relationships by:
Building a personal support network to help cope with PTSD while working on family and friend relationships
Sharing feelings honestly and openly, with respect and compassion
Building skills at problem solving and connecting with others
Including ways to play, be creative, relax, and enjoy others
What can be done to help someone who has PTSD?

Relations with others are very important for trauma survivors. Social support is one of the best things to protect against getting PTSD. Relationships can offset feelings of being alone. Relationships may also help the survivor’s self-esteem. This may help reduce depression and guilt. A relationship can also give the survivor a way to help someone else. Helping others can reduce feelings of failure or feeling cut off from others. Lastly, relationships are a source of support when coping with stress.
If you need to seek professional help, try to find a therapist who has skills in treating PTSD as well as working with couples or families. For resources, please see our Where to Get Help for PTSD page.
Many treatment approaches may be helpful for dealing with relationship issues. Options include:
One-to-one and group therapy
Anger and stress management
Assertiveness training
Couples counseling
Family education classes
Family therapy

The weakest among us has a gift, however seemingly trivial, which is peculiar to him, and which worthily used, will be a gift also to hus race.

~Ruskin

Never scoff at another’s weakness or try to cover your own. Instead, encourage others and hold your weakness up to the world where it is in the open and can be healed.

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Now let’s take a look at the Passive Aggressive personality. I’m sure once you read how the passive aggressive personality operates, you can see why it would be an exceedingly unhealthy situation for a P.T.S.D sufferer to try to live in close quarters with someone who has passive aggressive tendencies.

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Relationships: Passive-Aggressive Men, Who Are They Hurting?

He Hurts Everyone in His Path, Including Himself

Their the men who seem so nice, and trustworthy. They don’t hurt you out in the open, but in a very subtle way, you may not even be aware of. Just the same, they can hurt the people they say they care about the most.
A passive-aggressive man usually grows up in a household which may have a parent who is either passive-aggressive, or overbearing and controlling. If he really has bad luck, he may grow up with both. Many marriages consist of individuals who are opposites, or fill an area for the other person they may be lacking in. It’s an unspoken deal so to speak, you be the passive one, and I’ll be the overbearing one. As the boys are growing up, somewhere along the way they choose to either identify with one parent or the other. If they see the overbearing and controlling parent as scary, they may come to believe they do not want to be like that parent, and go the other way. If they see the passive parent as weak and wimpy, they may choose to be like the overbearing and controlling parent. What I’m going to write about is the passive-aggressive man. When the boy decides to be weak, unassuming, and afraid to stand up for himself. Ergo, he asserts himself in passive aggressive ways. This ends up hurting allot of the people he truly cares for.

The passive aggressive man is very often seen as the nice guy that would do anything for anybody. He never says “NO”, at least not out loud, to any request anyone makes of him. He is often everybody’s token doormat. What most people don’t know is there’s a volcano ready to erupt inside this man. He is too afraid to speak up and tell you what he thinks. Therefore, he goes about his life sneaking around doing things he doesn’t want anybody to know about., getting back at people in ways that have nothing much to do with why he’s really mad, and not standing up to the person, or persons, he needs too. He then ends up hurting those he cares about, and puts them in the line of fire.

Often times when he gets into a relationship, or married, he ends up choosing very strong, overbearing, controlling women. Remember, what I said, people often pick the opposite of themselves, and then it gets them off the hook for ever having to learn how to be strong, and assertive themselves. This is where the problem begins. Because he has chosen to be with this Witch on Wheels, he can never directly confront her with ANYHING. He is too scared. This ends up effecting friends, other family members, and anyone involved with this type of man. You can be this man’s very best friend and if Mrs. Wonderful objects, you’re a goner. Oh, he will keep you as a friend, probably, but it will most definitely be behind his partners back. You will be stuck in drama world, with a half-assed friendship. You can never call him at home when you need to, he hides your e-mails, and you cannot spend anytime with your so-called friend, unless you’re very, very careful. You will always be walking on eggshells. It’s almost like your having an affair with him, without the benefits. This ends up hurting his friends, because his friendships are dictated by her. This is the so-called passive part of his problem

The aggressive part of this disorder ends up not only hurting him, but the woman he is with. No matter how mad he gets at her, he is NOT going to stand up for himself, or tell her how he feels. He is too scared to say a word. What this man will do, is while being the all-loving nice guy and doing the housecleaning, his woman’s favorite figurine might just accidentally get broken. He will sneak behind her back, to see other women, friends, and to do things he especially knows would make her angry. It’s the only way he knows how to stand up for himself. You can imagine how damaging to a relationship this can be. It can go so far, their relationship ends forever. Unfortunately, because he does all these things in private, it may be along time, if ever, when she figures it out. She really does believe he will always be the nice doormat she fell in love with. This definitely works to his benefit.

Last but not least, this seriously hurts the man who is passive-aggressive, more than anyone else. He never learns to assert himself, and never develops the self-esteem to say, “this is who I am”, out loud. Although he feels some momentary exhilaration when getting back at someone, he also feels deep shame, that he is not being a real man. He can suffer with depression at times, wondering who he is, and will anyone ever really know him. He is stuck in limbo. He’s afraid to be who he wants to be for fear of losing the woman he loves. At the same time, he’s not even sure why he loves her anyway. After all, isn’t she just there to make up for his inability to do for himself? That may just be the case.

Although most of the time the passive- aggressive man appears to be a quiet, nice, helpful, boy scout kind of guy, he truly is a very hurtful person. He hurts his friends, his partner, his family, and anyone else on his, quietly, secret, destructive path. This is a very serious disorder, and any chance of change, will have to come with allot of counseling, and allot of work on his part. However change is very hard. The longer this man has been this way, the longer it will take to recover. There is also the possibility he may not want to change. Like good old Dr. Phil says, people do what they do because there is some kind of payoff they’re getting out of that particular behavior. Whatever his choice, to change, or not to change, this can be one of the most difficult type of men to live with. That’s if you ever really know in the first place!

10 Common Passive Aggressive Phrases to Avoid

Have you heard (or spoken!) any of these phrases lately?

Is there someone in your life who consistently makes you feel like you are on an emotional roller coaster? Do you know a person who is friendly one day but sulks and withdraws the next? Does a family member or friend consistently procrastinate, postpone, stall, and shut down any emotionally-laden conversations? Are you sometimes that person? If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, chances are you may be interacting with a passive aggressive person or showing signs of passive-aggressive behavior yourself.

In The Angry Smile: The Psychology of Passive Aggressive Behavior in Families, Schools, and Workplaces, 2nd ed., passive aggression is defined as a deliberate and masked way of expressing covert feelings of anger (Long, Long & Whitson, 2008). It involves a range of behaviors designed to get back at another person without him recognizing the underlying anger. These ten common passive aggressive phrases can serve as an early-warning system for you, helping you recognize hidden hostility when it is being directed your way:

1. “I’m Not Mad.”

Denying feelings of anger is classic passive aggressive behavior. Rather than being upfront and honest when questioned about his feelings, the passive aggressive person insists, “I’m not mad” even when he is seething on the inside.

2. “Fine.” “Whatever.”

Sulking and withdrawing from arguments are primary strategies of the passive aggressive person. Since passive aggression is motivated by a person’s belief that expressing anger directly will only make his life worse (Long, Long & Whitson, 2008), the passive aggressive person uses phrases like “Fine” and “Whatever” to express anger indirectly and to shut down direct, emotionally honest communication.

3. “I’m Coming!”

Passive aggressive persons are known for verbally complying with a request, but behaviorally delaying its completion. If whenever you ask your child to clean his room, he cheerfully says, “Okay, I’m coming,” but then fails to show up to complete the chore, chances are he is practicing the fine passive aggressive art of temporary compliance.

4. “I Didn’t Know You Meant Now.”

On a related note, passive aggressive persons are master procrastinators. While all of us like to put off unpleasant tasks from time to time, people with passive aggressive personalities rely on procrastination as a way of frustrating others and/or getting out of certain chores without having to directly refuse them.

5. “You Just Want Everything to be Perfect.”

When procrastination is not an option, a more sophisticated passive aggressive strategy is to carry out tasks in a timely, but unacceptable manner. For example:

A student hands in sloppy homework
A husband prepares a well-done steak for his wife, though he knows she prefers to eat steak rare
An employee dramatically overspends his budget on an important project
In all of these instances, the passive aggressive person complies with a particular request, but carries it out in an intentionally inefficient way. When confronted, he defends his work, counter-accusing others of having rigid or perfectionist standards.

6. “I Thought You Knew.”

Sometimes, the perfect passive aggressive crime has to do with omission. Passive aggressive persons may express their anger covertly by choosing not to share information when it could prevent a problem. By claiming ignorance, the person defends his inaction, while taking pleasure in his foe’s trouble and anguish.

7. “Sure, I’d be Happy To.”

Have you ever been in a customer service situation where a seemingly concerned clerk or super-polite phone operator assures you that your problem will be solved. On the surface, the representative is cooperative, but beware of his angry smile; behind the scenes, he is filing your request in the trash and stamping your paperwork with “DENY.”

8. “You’ve Done so Well for Someone with Your Education Level.”

The backhanded compliment is the ultimate socially acceptable means by which the passive aggressive person insults you to your core. If anyone has ever told you, “Don’t worry-you can still get braces even at your age” or “There are a lot of men out there who like plump women,” chances are you know how much “joy” a passive aggressive compliment can bring.

9. “I Was Only Joking”

Like backhanded compliments, sarcasm is a common tool of a passive aggressive person who expresses his hostility aloud, but in socially acceptable, indirect ways. If you show that you are offended by biting, passive aggressive sarcasm, the hostile joke teller plays up his role as victim, asking, “Can’t you take a joke?”

10. “Why Are You Getting So Upset?”

The passive aggressive person is a master at maintaining his calm and feigning shock when others, worn down by his indirect hostility, blow up in anger. In fact, he takes pleasure out of setting others up to lose their cool and then questioning their “overreactions.”

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The Passive Aggressive Man: He’s All About Control

Who is the passive aggressive man? Identify him and run for the hills.
If you’ve been in a relationship with him, you’ll know what I’m talking about. If you haven’t be on the look-out because chances are you will cross paths with a passive aggressive man.

Who is the passive aggressive man? He is that guy who avoids responsibility and conflict through passivity and withdrawal. He is the “Nice Guy” who reels you in with his adoration and once you are in the game he turns the tables so quickly your head will swim until you decide to take a hike. Do You See His Potential or Who He REALLY Is?
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The Passive Aggressive Man…
1. Withholds to Punish: He says one thing but means another. Sure, he wants to go to a movie. He even appears to enjoy himself until later that night when he rejects you sexually. You see, he didn’t want to go to a movie but, his passivity would not allow him to own it. His fear of conflict means punishing you in covert ways for something you “made” him do. What better way to punish than withhold something he knows you want?

2. Fears Conflict: He will do anything to keep from arguing with you. He has been taught that anger is unacceptable. Well, expressing anger in an open, honest way is unacceptable and not something you will get from this guy. What you will get is a relationship with a man who avoids solving relationship problems, avoids taking responsibility for problems in the relationship and most importantly avoids making an intimate connection with you.

3. Plays The Victim: This poor guy can’t win for losing, in his mind anyway. He will not show for a dinner date but find it unreasonable that you are upset. It is after, all his bosses fault for making him work late. He could have picked his cell phone up and called but calling isn’t nearly as pleasurable as letting you sit and wait. You waiting on him gets his angries out at you. He gets to punish you and blame his boss…he is off the hook, a “good guy” who is the victim of an unreasonable woman who expects too much from him.

4. Is Forgetful: He forgets birthdays, anniversaries, anything important to you will be forgotten by him. My ex used to forget he needed something from me until the last minute. If there was a social event related to his work, I would get notice the day before. I spent a lot of time running around trying to prepare from something in a few hours that would normally take days.

5. Is Afraid of You: They want you but they don’t want to become attached to you! He is in a constant battle with himself to pursue then distance himself. According to Scott Wetlzer, author of Living With The Passive Aggressive Man. The passive aggressive man is “unsure of his autonomy and afraid of being alone, he fights his dependency needs, usually by trying to control you. He wants you to think he doesn’t depend on you, but he binds himself closer than he cares to admit. Relationships can become battle grounds, where he can only claim victory if he denies his need for your support.”

You have a lot of anger toward the passive aggressive man you are involved with. You just can’t figure out exactly what you are angry about. He is sweet, kind and loving. He never argues, does exactly what you wish. There must be something wrong with you or such a good man would want to have sex with you, remember your birthday, put effort into solving the problems in the relationship or just show up on time every once in a while. How Do You Manage Red Brain Anger?

And that is the trap women who are involved with passive aggressive men fall into, they become responsible for all that is wrong in the relationship. He keeps you hanging in by doing for you when he doesn’t want to, by never arguing, by being such a nice guy. All those puzzling behaviors that send the opposite message than the other negative behaviors send.

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That is why they call it “crazy making” behavior. The passive aggressive man is very good at appearing to be calm, cool and collected while you are going off the deep end. It isn’t his intent to frustrate, offend or cause you to feel guilty. He truly does only want to help.

The only issue, the kind of help he has to offer comes with a price. He has expectations he is unable to openly express and when you don’t meet those expectations you get resentment and covert punishment in return. And, you should never expect your expectations to be met, not even when you’ve expressed them in a clear, easy to understand fashion.

Want a relationship with a passive aggressive man to last? Become a mind reader and keep your expectations low.

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The Passive Aggressive

There are many childhood set ups for this way of coping but most often there is a domineering mother and a father who is ineffectual. There are power struggles in the marriage with one parent backing off and withdrawing. The boy feels trapped between choosing loyalties at home. He is afraid to compete with his father who is absent either physically or emotionally or perceived as being inadequate. In the typical mother dominant-father passive relationship, the boy learns that the job of being a man in relationship is to escape the woman’s needs and subsequent demands.

The young boy is not allowed to express his feelings and develop a sense of self. He wants his mother’s attention and care yet he resents her continual intrusion. His anger grows but he cannot express it so it becomes submerged and is expressed in an unconscious ‘You can’t tell me what to do.’ He is not allowed to get his way by direct confrontation and competition so he learns to displace his anger through resistance. He learns to use charm, stubbornness, resistance and withdrawal to protect himself in power struggles. He rebels by becoming moody, being an underachiever or developing behavior problems. His self protectiveness and duplicity from the squelched anger and hostility becomes a habit that he plays out with other women he meets. He desperately seeks a woman to meet his needs of being accepted for who he is, but puts her off with small, continual acts of rebellion. He replays the distancing drama of his original family in the relationship.

The man with passive aggressive behavior needs someone to be the object of his hidden hostility. He needs an adversary whose expectations and demands he can resist as he plays out the dance he learned from his parents. He chooses a woman who will agree to be on the receiving end of his disowned anger. He resists her in small ways setting up a pattern of frustration so that she gets to express the anger that he cannot.

The biggest irritant in being with a passive aggressive man is that he doesn’t follow through on his agreements and promises. He dodges responsibility while insisting he’s pulling his weight. He often ignores reality as to his irresponsibility and withdrawal. He denies evidence, distorts minimalizes or lies to make his version of reality seem logical.

He uses vague language to sandbag the partner. Inconsistency and ambiguity are his tools of choice. He withholds information and has a hidden agenda. He can’t take criticism and makes excuses to get himself off the hook. He sulks and uses silence when confronted about his inability to live up to his promises, obligations or responsibilities. When he doesn’t follow through, he puts the blame on his partner so he doesn’t have to take it and accuses her of having the problem.

The man with this type of pattern shows little consideration of the time, feelings, standards or needs of others. He obstructs and block progress to others getting what they want and then ignores or minimalizes their dissatisfactions and anger. He is silent when confronted as he has never learned to compromise. He may be a workaholic, a womanizer, hooked on TV, caught in addictions or self-involved hobbies.

He may have multiple relationships with women as a way of keeping distant from one fully committed relationship. He is confused about which woman he wants and stays caught between the two women in his life not being able to commit fully to either. He is confused and can’t understand why the women get so angry with him. He feels others demand too much of him so resists in overt and subtle ways and feels deprived if he must give in to others. The man who copes with conflict by not being there has strong conflict over dependency. He desperately wants attention but fears being swallowed up by the partner. He can’t be alone and live without a woman in his life, but can’t be with a partner emotionally. He’s caught in a Catch 22–wanting affection but avoiding it because he fears it as his destruction. He resents feeling dependent on the woman so must keep her off guard. He makes his partner feel like a nothing through his neglect or irritability but he keeps her around because he needs her. His script is ‘Be here for me, but don’t come too close and don’t burden me with your needs or expectations.’

He has such strong fears of intimacy deep in his unconscious mind so he must set barriers up to prevent a deep emotional connection. He is clever at derailing intimacy when it comes up by tuning out his partner and changing the subject. He must withhold part of himself to feel safe and may withdraw sexually. Closeness and intimacy during sex may make him feel vulnerable and panicked bringing forth his deepest fears of dependency upon a woman. The passive aggressive man lives an internal loneliness; he wants to be with the woman but stays confused whether she is the right partner for him or not. He is scared and insecure causing him to seek contact with a partner but scared and insecure to fully commit.

Due to the wounding from childhood, he is unable to trust that he is safe within the relationship. He fears revealing himself and can’t share feelings. His refusal to express feelings keeps him from experiencing his sense of insecurity and vulnerability. He often denies feelings like love that might trap him into true connection with another human being. He feels rejected and hurt when things don’t go his way but can’t distinguish between feeling rejected and being rejected. He pushes people away first so he won’t be rejected. He is often irritable and uses low-level hostility to create distance at home. The relationship becomes based on keeping the partner at bay. He often sets up experiences to get others to reject or deprive him. He is noncommittal and retreats, feeling put upon and burdened by partner’s requests for more closeness. He becomes a cave dweller to feel safe.

The man with passive aggressive actions is a master in getting his partner to doubt herself and feel guilty for questioning or confronting him. He encourages her to fall for his apologies, accept his excuses and focus on his charm rather than deal with the issue directly. He blames her for creating the problem and keeps her focused on her anger rather than his own ineptitude. When backed into a corner, he may explode and switch to aggressiveaggressive behavior then switch back to passivity. He keeps his partner held hostage by the hope that he will change. He may appease her and clean up his act after a blow up for several weeks, then it’s back to business as usual.

The passive aggressive man is the classic underachiever with a fear of competition in the work place. He cannot take constructive feedback from others. His fear of criticism, not following through and his inability to see his part in any conflict keeps him from advancing on the job.

You are not seen as a person with feelings and needs. They care for you the way they care for a favorite pair of slippers or an old easy-chair. You are there for their comfort and pleasure and are of use as long as you fill their needs. The sad thing is, they can sweet talk you, know all the right things to say, to make you believe that you are loved and adored by a someone who is completely unable to form an emotional connection with anyone.

If forced to deal with the problems you’re having due to their behavior, they will completely withdraw from the relationship and you. They will almost never admit that they were wrong no matter how much evidence you show. They have their own version of reality and will work at making your view distorted.

While most men are having sex with their partner in order to connect more deeply with her, the passive aggressive man withholds sex from his partner in order to keep himself safe and to show her who the boss is. Sex is a weapon to be used, not a way of connecting more emotionally.

These people are usually unaware that the difficulties they encounter in their life are the result of their own behavior. They do not connect their passive resistant behavior to the hostility or resentment other people feel towards them. Dealing with passive aggressive people can be crazymaking. You feel dismissed, shut down, ignored… but in a subtle enough way that you don’t know how to react. At some point, you explode.

He Hurts Everyone in His Path, Including Himself

They’re the men who seem so nice, and trustworthy. They don’t hurt you out in the open, but in a very subtle way, you may not even be aware of. Just the same, they can hurt the people they say they care about the most.

A passive-aggressive man usually grows up in a household which may have a parent who is either passive-aggressive, or overbearing and controlling. If he really has bad luck, he may grow up with both. When the boy decides to be weak, unassuming, and afraid to stand up for himself. Ergo, he asserts himself in passive aggressive ways. This ends up hurting allot of the people he truly cares for.

The passive aggressive man is very often seen as the nice guy that would do anything for anybody. He never says “NO”, at least not out loud, to any request anyone makes of him. He is often everybody’s token doormat. What most people don’t know is there’s a volcano ready to erupt inside this man. He is too afraid to speak up and tell you what he thinks. Therefore, he goes about his life sneaking around doing things he doesn’t want anybody to know about, getting back at people in ways that have nothing much to do with why he’s really mad, and not standing up to the person, or persons, he needs too. He then ends up hurting those he cares about.

Passive aggressive behavior stems from an inability to express anger in a healthy way. A person’s feelings may be so repressed that they don’t even realize they are angry or feeling resentment. A passive aggressive can drive people around him/her crazy and seem sincerely dismayed when confronted with their behavior. Due to their own lack of insight into their feelings the passive aggressive often feels that others misunderstand them or, are holding them to unreasonable standards if they are confronted about their behavior.

Common Passive Aggressive Behaviors:

They rarely mean what they say or say what they mean. The best judge of how a passive aggressive feels about an issue is how they act. Normally they don’t act until after they’ve caused some kind of stress by their ambiguous way of communicating.

The passive aggressive avoids responsibility by “forgetting.” How convenient is that? There is no easier way to punish someone than forgetting that lunch date or your birthday or, better yet, an anniversary.

He may never express anger. There are some who are happy with whatever you want. On the outside anyway! The passive aggressive may have been taught, as a child, that anger is unacceptable. Hence they go through life stuffing their anger, being accommodating and then sticking it to you in an under-handed way.

The passive aggressive often can’t trust. Because of this, they guard themselves against becoming intimately attached to someone. A passive aggressive will have sex with you but they rarely make love to you. If they feel themselves becoming attached, they may punish you by withholding sex.

Do you want something from your passive aggressive spouse? If so, get ready to wait for it or maybe even never get it. It is important to him/her that you don’t get your way. He/she will act as if giving you what you want is important to them but, rarely will he/she follow through with giving it. It is very confusing to have someone appear to want to give to you but never follow through. You can begin to feel as if you are asking too much which is exactly what he/she wants to you to feel.

The Passive Aggressive and You:

The passive aggressive needs to have a relationship with someone who can be the object of his or her hostility. They need someone whose expectations and demands he/she can resist.

The biggest frustration in being with a passive aggressive is that they never follow through on agreements and promises. He/she will dodge responsibility for anything in the relationship while at the same time making it look as if he/she is pulling his/her own weight and is a very loving partner. The sad thing is, you can be made to believe that you are loved and adored by a person who is completely unable to form an emotional connection with anyone.

The passive aggressive ignores problems in the relationship, sees things through their own skewed sense of reality and if forced to deal with the problems will completely withdraw from the relationship and you. They will deny evidence of wrong doing, distort what you know to be real to fit their own agenda, minimize or lie so that their version of what is real seems more logical.

The passive aggressive will say one thing, do another, and then deny ever saying the first thing. The passive aggressive withholds information about how he/she feels, their ego is fragile and can’t take the slightest criticism so why let you know what they are thinking or feeling? God forbid they disclose that information and you criticize them.

Inside the Passive Aggressive:

The passive aggressive has a real desire to connect emotionally but their fear of such a connection causes them to be obstructive and engage in self-destructive habits. He will be covert in his actions and it will only move him further from his desired relationship with you.

The passive aggressive never looks internally and examines their role in a problem. They have to externalize it and blame others for having shortcomings. To accept that he has flaws would be tantamount to emotional self-destruction. They live in denial of their self-destructive behaviors, the consequences of those behaviors and the choices they make that cause others so much pain.

The passive aggressive objectifies the object of their desire. You are to be used as a means to an end. Your only value is to feed his own emotional needs. You are not seen as a person with feelings and needs but as an extension of him. You are there for their comfort and pleasure and are of use as long as you fill their needs.

The passive aggressive wants the attention and attachment that comes with loving someone but fears losing his independence and sense of self to his spouse. They want love and attention but avoid it out of fear of it destroying them. You have to be kept at arms length and if there is an emotional attachment it is tenuous at best.

I’m about to fill you in on a little secret. Anger plays a role in passive aggressive behavior. Yep, that passive aggressive spouse that is driving you insane is angry as hell and full of grief. The passive aggressive deals with anger in one of two ways. Either they have no control over their anger or they have problems expressing their anger.

Adults who have no control over their anger and those who have no idea how to express their anger are grieving. They are grieving the loss of something that was rightfully theirs. Their right to entertain themselves regardless of societies or their parent’s beliefs of what was right or wrong. The right to be heard and cared for regardless of how addicted a parent was to alcohol or drugs. They are grieving the right to express love or negative feelings or a desire for parental attention without fear of punishment.

It is about loss, the loss of normal things any child should expect from a parent. Instead of grieving that loss in a normal way, they internalize it and compensate by being overly aggressive or overly passive. The grief shows itself in behaviors that are destructive to themselves and anyone who engages in a relationship with them.

A man who abuses his wife is often motivated by feelings of loss and grief. Feelings that are expressed through rage. Women who emotionally manipulate their husband by withholding affection are motivated by the same feelings of loss and grief.

The aggression or passivity hides their fear of rejection and helplessness when it comes to getting what they need from their spouse. The spouse is left reeling and wondering what he/she did to deserve a slap across the face or the withholding of normal loving affection.

The spouse feels responsible in some way. That is the sneaky thing about living with a passive aggressive individual. They don’t know how to properly express anger but they are geniuses when it comes to shifting the blame and projecting their own bad behavior off onto their spouse.

Next time you are trying to make sense of some nonsensical behavior by your spouse remember you are dealing with a wounded, damaged child. Don’t make excuses for him/her. Don’t take responsibility for their inability to properly express their grief and anger. Understanding why someone acts the way they do does not mean excusing their hurtful actions.

If a passive aggressive personality and a Post Traumatic Stress Disorder sufferer team up for business, romance, or friendship, the likely end result will be a lot of drama and hurt feelings. No matter if the passive aggressive person realizes what they are doing or not is irrelevant. No matter if the passive aggressive is aware or not, they are presenting a veiled threat with their words and behaviors to the P.T.S.D personality. The P.T.S.D. personality cannot help but sense this threat. It primes the P.T.S.D mind for an adrenaline response and begins putting the P.T.S.D. person into hyperarousal or hypervigilance territory. From this place, it truly takes a small stimuli to take the P.T.S.D. personality from primed for action, to a complete adrenaline response/meltdown. The Passive Aggressive person’s tendencies are then to punish the P.T.S.D. personality for their moment of weakness. This punishment will then feed into the P.T.S.D. again creating a cyclical hell that is very difficult to escape. I lived in this passive aggressive/ptsd generated hell from November 2011 until August 2013. I’m just beginning to come out of they cyclical thoughts and hell that being romantically involved with a passive aggressive while I am suffering from P.T.S.D. It is my hope that the research I sought out to understand my own situation may help others on both the passive aggression side and the PTSD side of this equation improve their own experience.

“Of Pain, poetry, and pot.” Is a collection of cannabis centered poetry in a neobeatnik style. It includes updated versions of Allen Allen Ginsberg – Howls “howl” and “america”, along with an update on “to whom it may concern” by Adrian Mitchell , a cannabis parody of Rifleman’s Creed and many other poems that are all my own. I hope ya grab your free download while it is available and be sure to lend it to your friends (I have enabled book lending on this piece). Yes, I am aware of the odd format in the table of contents. I assure you that is semi-intentional. and please! Share these links around so the pot poetry can be read easily.
another link for the paperback

A bit of Cancer poetry for thought…

To Whom It May ConcernI was run over by the truth one day.Ever since the diagnosis I have been this waySo burn my body with radiationTell me lies about cancer.

Heard the alarm clock screaming with pain,Couldn’t find myself so I went back to sleep againSo fill my veins with Chemoburn my body with radiationTell me lies about cancer. Every time I shut my eyes, all I see is pain.Made a little ribbon to remember all the namesSo empty out my bank accountfill my veins with chemoburn my body with radiationTell me lies about cancer. I hear they are thinking surgery, hope it’s not my brains.They’re only gutting fishes for their own personal gain.So numb my brain with Morphineempty out my bank accountfill my veins with chemoburn my body with radiationTell me lies about cancer. Where were you at the time of the crime?Ripping up the Hippocratic oath, just to make a dime?So chain my Life with hopelessnessnumb my brain with Morphineempty out my bank accountfill my veins with chemoburn my body with radiationTell me lies about cancer

You put your doctors in, they take their conscience out,They take the human being and they twist it all aboutSo take my world awaychain my Life with hopelessnessnumb my brain with Morphineempty out my bank accountfill my veins with chemoburn my body with radiationTell me lies about cancer–

A Sick Rose,
yet
an angel-
beautiful
and rare.
None
can compare
to the artist,
the being,
who is
Breezy Kiefair:Wings
tattered
and torn-
like the
leaves
that adorn-
her art
pure and wise.
Her dreams
and hope
she shares
with us,
through
green-tinted eyes.Sharing
a fragment-
a potential-
yet barely
tapped;
of
a little girl
lost,
but no longer
trapped.Flitting
and flying,
hither
and fro-
Seeking
fertile
soul soil
where love
might just
grow.Seeking
and searching
for those
more
worn
and war-torn
than she:
Ones
anxious-
pleading-
desperate
in need.Praying
the Creator
sends
them hope
with a smile;
on the wings
of change
sending
her energy
over the
miles.A fragile
yet wise,Ginsberg sort
of a Girl;
On the
border
of being –
out of
this world.Searching
Seeking
Hoping to find-
All she
can help
in her very short time.Her maggic
is sacred –
Her intent
is so pure;
gods and godesses
of old
seek to them
to bring
her near.Demons abound
a fount
believing they
to have found;
Yet to one-
her Creator
only,
she so is bound

A heart
pure
in desire,
for absence
of animosity.
In her
dreams
she
once beheld
recipreciosity

Her heart bruised
yet open
to one
and to all-
True to
the Creator
for that,none shall fall.

A lighte
of the ages-
A friend
true and rare-
Such is the woman
known asBreezy Kiefair!!

Poetry and Random Reflections of Maggie Slighte. “Everything I do; I do, Slightely”

Open your closed eyelid
Which is gently brushed by a virginal dream!
I am the ghost of the rose
That you wore last night at the ball.
You took me when I was still sprinkled with pearls
Of silvery tears from the watering-can,
And, among the sparkling festivities,
You carried me the entire night.

O you, who caused my death:
Without the power to chase it away,
You will be visited every night by my ghost,
Which will dance at your bedside.
But fear nothing; I demand
Neither Mass nor De Profundis;
This mild perfume is my soul,
And I’ve come from Paradise.

My destiny is worthy of envy;
And to have a fate so fine,
More than one would give his life
For on your breast I have my tomb,
And on the alabaster where I rest,
A poet with a kiss
Wrote: “Here lies a rose,
Of which all kings may be jealous.”http://youtu.be/B_7MiojC3ys